It's Nap Week!
Jan. 19th, 2010 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wrenbIt's Nap Week here at Gan Hooli*. Like Shark Week but a whole lot less active. Over the last two weeks Danny has been limiting his naps to about an hour spent dozing on my lap, half-heartedly nursing. He was also going through a growth spurt and fending off a tummy bug followed by a cold. I cut the kid some slack. :)
Yesterday afternoon after work Danny and I went to the bookstore and picked up The No-Cry Nap Solution and The No Cry Sleep Solution*. I skimmed the nap book while nursing Danny down, and was thrilled when he napped for 2 hours in his crib after I implemented just one change! Of course, I had a bunch to do so I didn't have a chance to read much more of the nap book during nap time. And then it was time for La Leche League and then it was bedtime and Danny needed help calming down so I didn't get to read any of the sleep book.
Today Danny slept in until 8, napped for half an hour for Drew, and appeared at my office at 11. He was so excited to see everyone that he got really riled up. Kiddo did not nap until 12:30pm. We usually leave the office at 1, so this was a bit of a problem. Katelyn solved it for me by watching my sleeping child while I went to the Post Office. (Robin -- your boxes are finally on their way).
Danny woke up around 1:30. So that's a total of 1 1/2 hours of sleep since waking up. Not enough time for an 8 month old baby. He was still yawning so I wondered if he might fall asleep in the car (nope), or after I nursed him. He dozed off nursing but woke up on transfer, just like last week. I tried shushing him, patting his back, yawning at him, all that jazz but no dice. My baby was complaining and crawling all over the crib. I lay down with him. Nope. So I grabbed my mei tai and put Danny on my back, hoping to bore him to sleep. We started some laundry. did the dishes, put away coats, tidied the kitchen. Still awake and now protesting. I changed his diaper and was about to take him back to the couch to nurse down again and STOPPED.
Part of Nap Week is teaching me how to help Danny nap. One thing I keep reading is that sometimes babies get confused when they go to sleep one place and wake up somewhere else, and so they don't go back to sleep. Nursing Danny down in the living room is comfy for me, but it's sunny in there and then I have to move him to the crib if I want to get anything done, and Danny rarely sleeps through the transfer. I turned around and headed back into the bedroom. It's nice and dark in there. I lay down on the bed with Danny in the cosleeper and we nursed. For half an hour (Hey, wasn't this nap thing supposed to buy me time? Why does it take so long?). But eventually he fell asleep. I rolled away from him, careful not to squash the cat who had curled up right behind my bottom, and tucked my baby in for a nap. That was at 3:30. It's 4 o'clock now. I'm hoping that he's going to sleep until 5:30, but I'll settle for 4:30.
Tomorrow we'll try to do better. I'll try to be prepared, and to tell Drew what I know so that if Danny naps for him maybe Danny can get a decent morning nap. Hopefully by the end of the week or this time next week we'll have the hang of this!
*Gan Hooli = "Garden of Hooligans" in my own form of Hebrish.
* Both by Elizabeth Pantley, if anyone's dying to know. The NCSS is so much more of a sane sleep book than Ferber. Oh my lord. I can respect an author who says "Every child is different. Try these things, and find what works for you."
Yesterday afternoon after work Danny and I went to the bookstore and picked up The No-Cry Nap Solution and The No Cry Sleep Solution*. I skimmed the nap book while nursing Danny down, and was thrilled when he napped for 2 hours in his crib after I implemented just one change! Of course, I had a bunch to do so I didn't have a chance to read much more of the nap book during nap time. And then it was time for La Leche League and then it was bedtime and Danny needed help calming down so I didn't get to read any of the sleep book.
Today Danny slept in until 8, napped for half an hour for Drew, and appeared at my office at 11. He was so excited to see everyone that he got really riled up. Kiddo did not nap until 12:30pm. We usually leave the office at 1, so this was a bit of a problem. Katelyn solved it for me by watching my sleeping child while I went to the Post Office. (Robin -- your boxes are finally on their way).
Danny woke up around 1:30. So that's a total of 1 1/2 hours of sleep since waking up. Not enough time for an 8 month old baby. He was still yawning so I wondered if he might fall asleep in the car (nope), or after I nursed him. He dozed off nursing but woke up on transfer, just like last week. I tried shushing him, patting his back, yawning at him, all that jazz but no dice. My baby was complaining and crawling all over the crib. I lay down with him. Nope. So I grabbed my mei tai and put Danny on my back, hoping to bore him to sleep. We started some laundry. did the dishes, put away coats, tidied the kitchen. Still awake and now protesting. I changed his diaper and was about to take him back to the couch to nurse down again and STOPPED.
Part of Nap Week is teaching me how to help Danny nap. One thing I keep reading is that sometimes babies get confused when they go to sleep one place and wake up somewhere else, and so they don't go back to sleep. Nursing Danny down in the living room is comfy for me, but it's sunny in there and then I have to move him to the crib if I want to get anything done, and Danny rarely sleeps through the transfer. I turned around and headed back into the bedroom. It's nice and dark in there. I lay down on the bed with Danny in the cosleeper and we nursed. For half an hour (Hey, wasn't this nap thing supposed to buy me time? Why does it take so long?). But eventually he fell asleep. I rolled away from him, careful not to squash the cat who had curled up right behind my bottom, and tucked my baby in for a nap. That was at 3:30. It's 4 o'clock now. I'm hoping that he's going to sleep until 5:30, but I'll settle for 4:30.
Tomorrow we'll try to do better. I'll try to be prepared, and to tell Drew what I know so that if Danny naps for him maybe Danny can get a decent morning nap. Hopefully by the end of the week or this time next week we'll have the hang of this!
*Gan Hooli = "Garden of Hooligans" in my own form of Hebrish.
* Both by Elizabeth Pantley, if anyone's dying to know. The NCSS is so much more of a sane sleep book than Ferber. Oh my lord. I can respect an author who says "Every child is different. Try these things, and find what works for you."
