Sleeping schedule????

[Jewelz]

So I am going out with my husband tonight for the first time since we got Felix...my vet said it is really important he gets at least 12 hrs each night but I have to leave before his routine bedtime....should I put him to bed early or wait until I get home even if it is quite late & a few hours past his regular bed time?:43:

 

[crimson]

don't take it too seriously, but they do need a schedule.

I put my birds to bed according to the seasons, sun up and sun down.
winter time I put them to bed around 7, and they get between 11-12 hours

 

[MenomaMinx]

Your birds go along for a sleep schedule that you actually get to set?

I'm impressed.

As I frequently remind the vet every time he asks, the birds are in charge.

My Kumiko{calico macaw} yells at me, usually a single "arc" when he gets to dim in the room – she thinks I turn the sun off, and thinks it's deliberate as far as I can tell.

She's happier with more night time sleep, but she takes naps throughout the day anyway, and her definition of more sleep is lights out between midnight and 1 o'clock in the morning.

Back to the schedule thing, once upon a time we tried to make that work with the smaller species of birds in the house. Only the cockatiels and budgies would go for it during the years they lived by the bay window – and that kind of required enforcement, because being covered doesn't mean that bird is actually asleep. Also, cockatiels are prone to night frights, so complete dark wasn't exactly possible anyway.

Valentino(CAG) was absolutely adamant about being absolutely everywhere and his solution was to stick his head in my dad's armpit until my dad actually went to bed around four in the morning {not sure how he stood the smell ;-)

This was their nightly ritual for years: TV in a very brightly lit room on a recliner, armpit sleep, and then upstairs to bed about two hours or so before sunrise.

Alex(red factor Canary), was completely indifferent to the day night schedule
thing.

Two of the budgies{rainbow and beanie}, as well as cheeky the grey cockatiel, had an entire room to their selves {separately} with a window that was artificially shaded from light with an actual pulldown shade. These three birds absolutely set their sleep schedule by the TV – none of which had any interest actually watching it, but liked it as a personal nightlight. My hearing is beyond the normal hearing range on both ends of this spectrum, so I could hear the TV at the zero setting with that particular model – it didn't have a mute button, and my room was right next to this one, so at times it drove me batty having that thing on while I was trying to sleep. Eventually reached a compromise by buying a TV with a mute button

Eventually, I'm going to install sleep timer to an outlet attached to a lamp in Kumiko's room. Right now, I'm still trying to figure out a better compromise though – decades of quasi-insomniac birds makes any normalcy concerning sleep bit strange to me ;-)

 

[Jewelz]

Thanks Crimson & MenomaMinx

Felix is only 6 months old so my vet thought if we get him started on a regular sleeping schedule early it would be more likely to stick later in his life....even though we live in a fairly small condo we have Felix' bed time cage set up in our bedroom closet so it is quiet & dark when he goes to sleep.... It's really the only place we can offer those two things for his sleepy time
...if he is especially active and seemingly unwilling to go to bed I will give him a few table spoons of diluted sleepy-time tea and he settles down. It's the morning when he will get active in there and get anxious to come out. Since we moved Felix into the bedroom closet he has become much calmer when he interacts with us. He doesn't get as cranky and when he is cranky he nips are not as painful.

I am happy to know if we are unable to stick to the schedule once in a while it will not undo some of the progress we have made over the last little while

 

[kiwiS]

I cover Kiwi's cage at 9 pm and uncover it at 730 a.m. It is a huge black cover that covers the whole cage, and the cage is in the living room/tv room/dining room (we live in a small place..). Sometimes she kicks up a fuss but after a minute or two of mumbling and grumbling she's fast asleep, even when we have the t.v. on, or talking.

If we leave early to go out somewhere, I close the blinds, and have the lamp by her cage turn off at 9 pm by timer. There is usually another light on somewhere else in the house, but it's dim in the living room. Then when we get home (sometimes, suuuppperrr late), I'll tiptoe by and cover her cage. Sometimes she'll wake up and give a little purr or two, but then she happily goes back to sleep.

I agree with your vet about setting a good sleeping habit earlier on. You won't undo any progress I'm sure, so long as you keep some consistency during the regular days. Now that she is comfortable with this routine, she will sleep through any noise we make after 9 pm!

 

[baron1282]

Well my wife and I live in a basement so we kind of get to set our sleep schedule. We don't get up until 10 because of 2nd shift, so we have him in bed by ten at night and he is up with us at 10. I will put the cover over his cage at ten while we watch TV and he sleeps, but when we go to bed I open the cover up because it's pitch black when we sleep. That way my light which is on a timer will turn on at 10 and he is up tweeting for us to get out of bed and pay attention to him.