One of the toughest parts (for me) of being a mom is making sleep schedule transitions. Normally, I consider myself a pretty relaxed mommy, but when it comes to sleep, I am NOT RELAXED!
I have been delaying the one-nap transition as long as possible, but it was starting to happen on it's own (ie: just not sleeping when I put her down in the afternoon.) I figured if she was only going to sleep once, it should probably be happening a little bit later in the day, so alas, the transition was made.
One nap and I aren't getting along very well. Abby has made the transition quite seemlessly (kind of). I, on the other hand, have not. When the once glorious hour of 10 a.m. rolls around, I am exhausted! My body is used to a period of relaxation at that time, but now, 10 is just another number on the clock. And, there are still three more hours until relaxtion comes.
The reason I say Abby's transitions has been "kind of" seemless is because she hasn't quite figured out that she should still sleep the length of time of two naps, just all at once. In other words, she has only been averaging an hour of daytime shut eye.
Now really, this doesn't come as a surprise to me. She has never really mastered the art of a nice, lengthy siesta. She has always been wonderful at night sleep, and she's great at falling asleep for a nap, it's the staying asleep that we've always struggled with.
I have to laugh at myself though, because Abby is always so pleasant, no matter how short her naps are. I guess she just doesn't need as much daytime rest as other kids do. Rather than rejoice during the occasional long naps, I constantly stress about the short ones. Sigh...
Now, you'll have to excuse me, my baby is awake from her nap...
Oh Deborah! Gideon is 7 1/2 months and has NEVER slept through the night yet. I can count on one hand the number times he's slept for 3 hours at a time. His naps are hardly naps....I get 20, 30, maybe 45 minutes at a time...sometimes I get two of those. I'm such a mess! I can't remember the last time I really slept. It's so frustrating because the only time I get "downtime" is when Byron is around and that's not very long before bedtime routine.....and then it's a battle to "keep him asleep" all night long. I feel like I'm a horrible mom and I just don't know what to do. I'm completely against letting my baby "cry it out." The only thing that I've found is this book called the No-Cry Sleep Solution. She also has a book called the No-Cry nap solutions. It's really helped me understand why my baby sleeps the way he does and implement little ways to help him sleep better. I think the book is like $10 on Amazon and you could probably get it from the library...if you are interested. Hope she starts to nap better soon for you!
ReplyDeleteAnd wouldn't you know it, Bennett has decided to go back to two naps. What the heck?
ReplyDeleteSo, Andrew has always been pretty short sleeper kid (like 1.5-2 hr naps) until the last two months and now it's like 3.5 hours...Miracle of miracles. And tell Racquel ( the other commenter) to try reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It SAVED my life with Andrew.
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