Scratch that idea

[wrenb]

My afternoon has reminded me of all the reasons I shouldn't take on the care of someone else's baby. I don't really know what I'm doing here, parenting, I'm just making it up as I go along. That's fine to inflict on my own offspring but not so cool with someone else's.

Danny will be 9 months old in a couple of weeks. He's starting in on separation anxiety which makes my goal of Nap Week very much 1 step forward 2 steps back. This afternoon we napped together for a little while and then I tried to get him to go back to sleep. No dice. As a parent I can do that. As a daycare provider, no way. I know I need to teach him how to go back to sleep, but I don't know how and I'm not going to let him scream and cry the way my husband's cousin thinks he ought to. I've heard her daughter cry -- it was heartbreaking and she's still a lousy napper.

So I'm going to muddle through this milestone-strewn month. I'm going to watch my baby work out how to walk and how to say Mama and Dada (or Abba, Drew's not too picky), and he'll cut those two top teeth, and then the two wonderful hours known as Nap Time will return. I'm going to be helpful but I'm going to admit that I cannot make my son sleep, it's like trying to teach a pig to sing.

Comments

[anemone.livejournal.com]

My daughter's daycare couldn't get her to nap, and I was never bothered by it at all. (All the other kids napped nicely in the morning and the afternoon, but there she'd be, awake and playing.)

Now, if they'd left her to cry it out, I'd have felt differently about it...