I feel bad at work.

[LovelySydney]

I can't help but feel terrible when I am at work and Gussy is home by himself. I wake him up in the morning and have an hour to spend before I have to leave. Then I try to come back at lunch and have another hour. Work ends at approx. 5:30 and Gussy is in bed at 6:30:( That's only about 3 hours a day!!

I feel like we aren't spending enough time together. On saturday & sunday I have all day to myself and I will be spending all day with Gus - but I feel like I am abandoning him during the week, especially when this is the time he should be learning to trust me and get used to me.

Any thoughts???

[Bubblelady]

Win the lottery :confused:
Find a Sugar Daddy :confused:
Inherit a fortune :confused:
Strike gold :confused:
Smuggle Gusgus into work :confused:

[newloviemom]

Can he have a later bed time? I'll bet he naps some during the day when you are gone. Maybe like an 8 pm bedtime? I don't put Zoe to bed until 10:00 pm. Also, on the days I work, I am gone 14 hours from the time I leave to the time I get home. My son is here on the days I work, so Zoe has companionship, but he doesn't take her out by my request. I'm afraid he would forget she was out, and not keep a close eye on her. I really think you could stretch out his bedtime til a little later though, and that will give you more time with him.

[LovelySydney]

Oh I try to stretch out bedtime, lol. But gus will get right in his happy hut at 6:30pm on the dot and look at me like, "the suns down! Go away!" haha. i suppose I could take the hut out and put it in when i want him to sleep. I know in the summer it will be better because the sun doesn't go down until 9pm so that will be nice.

[newloviemom]

That is very cute that he goes in his hut all by hiimself to go night night!! Does he come out of his cage and sit with you at all? Maybe you could take him in to a different room away from his cage to play with him and cuddle with him for a while to keep him up a little later?

[Bubblelady]

My Gussie is like your Gus...when she wants to go to bed she gets really annoying till I take her to her cage. Definately not a night owl. Buddy, on the other hand, just crawls in my shirt & goes to sleep when the mood strikes her. Course that's most of the time, now. But when she was younger, it was pretty much at sun down. She'd go to sleep in my shirt while I watched tv or read or whatever. And if I got too wiggley, or had the sound up too loud, she'd nip me! I learned pretty quickly to not disturb her, once she settled in :rofl:

[Pips mom]

Wow, my birds are all night owls! They have adjusted to my schedule nicely, and I have most of the day with them....every day! then go to work in the mid to late afternoon.....they all go in and rest up and wait until I get home....then they all are awake and ready to play when I get in late at night! especially Pip! Ivy is the first to get tired and want to turn in for the night, then Pip, and then my tiels.....sometimes my male tiel is up and wide awake and singing away after midnight! they all sleep in for me in the morning too....such good birdies! I've never been a morning person....day jobs just aren't for me! plus working my hours seems to work out just perfect for my birds.

[SillyFids]

I feel bad too when I am at work but my bird seems happy to see me when I am home, even if it is for a couple hours. & like you I have weekends with it so that definitely helps.

[LovelySydney]

OMG totally off subject but Im home for lunch right now & Gus is sitting next to me on his playgym & he let me rub his belly!!! haha i was waiting for his beak to come down but it didn't - so cute!!

[bookworm0550]

i think you can push his bedtime later. they take naps throughout the day. but i guess if he wants to go to bed at 6:30, he wants to go to bed. man, my fids are usually put into bed by 9 or 10 at the latest depending on when i get home that day.

[LovelySydney]

i tried tonight to push back bedtime but sure enough its 7pm and Gus has been asleep for about a half hour. lol - i even took out the happy hut but the poor thing was falling asleep in his perch and looked so lonely!! So, maybe a little later day by day, or I just wait until summer.

[bookworm0550]

awww, maybe that's just his bedtime then. i wish my birds did that (not at 6:30, but you know, at 9 or 10). if i let them stay up late,they prob would too. bedtime? what's that?

[Enko_chan]

My birds were only here for short times...

but they seemed to have pretty ingrained ideas of what to do at bedtime.

Enko chan would climb in my shirt around 8:30 PM and fall asleep and cry when I put him in his plushie tree house to go to bed. We also took naps together during the day. He'd just climb down inside my shirt whenever he wanted to rest. He would even wake up for a moment, climb out, poop on the towel I kept on my shoulder and climb back in and go back to sleep.

Loki would get very irritable around 7 PM and had NO interest napping with me. We took an afternoon nap together, he'd fall asleep perched on my side when I took a nap during the day- but he wanted IN his happy hut or favorite spot on the rope perch as soon as the clock struck 7.

I wonder how Freyja and I will assimilate to each others' schedules??

[HaleBoppPeachyluv]

When i first got maka & sunnybird, their bedtimes were about the time the sun went down. Now, I keep the lights bright inside, and we pushed bedtime back almost 2 hours slowly over a few weeks. Now her bedtime is 8pm or little after. When it's close to 8, i turn off the lights around her & she starts to slow down. After I wrap her cage, i hear beak grinding or her "singing" herself to sleep. Humans go to bed usually by 10pm at the latest.

[Enko_chan]

After I wrap her cage, i hear beak grinding or her "singing" herself to sleep.

One thing we REALLY miss about having a bird in the house is the sleep 'peep-peep-peep'... I'm a very light sleeper and would sometimes wake up in the night when they would sing in their sleep. peep-peep-peep. I would just smile to myself and think 'yay, comfy sleepy birdie' and fall back to sleep.

[LauraO]

I think it's really great that you are giving Gus time out and with you before work. I know it's hard to change bedtimes but I think you can do it gradually, putting him to bed 15 minutes or so later every week. You should be able to keep him up a while later. He should also naturally go to bed later during the summer, which is what my birdies do. Birds naturally get up and go to sleep with the sun.

[LovelySydney]

I kept Gus up a little later tonight. I left lights on and shut the blinds earlier so he wouldn't see the sun going down - I talked to someone I know who had birds and he said that sometimes the bird just has an internal clock to wake up with the sun and go to bed with the sun. The only reason I wish he would stay up longer is so we can hang out more, but I'm just being selfish = )