Tuesday, September 29, 2009

the sleep saga: day 1

don't worry - i won't post daily about the sleep saga BUT here's what i've taken from Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.

> never wake a sleeping baby
> begin soothing your baby in preparation for a nap when they're drowsy, not overtired
> babies have a 1 - 2 hour period of wakefulness and then it's nap time
> you cannot make short nappers sleep longer. they're simply short nappers.

and here's what i learned today in my attempts to put ben to nap in his crib.

> ben is a short napper
> ben doesn't have a 1 - 2 hour wakeful window - he has more like a 45 min - 1 hr window.
> ben likes to trick you into thinking he's not tired by laughing but it quickly turns to crying and now he's overtired and not planning to sleep.

so all through the book, this dr. talks about babies having this 1 - 2 hour period of wakefulness. he must say it a billion times. so if my baby wakes up at 7am, he'll have a nap at 9am which will last 2 - 4 hours (whaaat?) then wake up, eat, play, and go down for an afternoon nap around 1pm which will, again, last 2 - 4 hours. etc. this morning ben was up at 6:45, ate, played and looked drowsy at 7:40. "but ben, you're supposed to wait until 9am!" and the short story is, ben did not follow the author's plan. "ben!" instead, he took four 30 - 40min naps, all with varying amounts of crying preceding them.

after he was in bed tonight (with no troubles at all, as usual - why are naps different?), i lamented to tim about how cranky ben was and how he's not sleeping long enough, yada yada yada. tim's shaking his head at my stressed-out state after one day of this self-induced madness. thankfully, i have babycenter.com. i've posted about this before. but tonight, i typed "short napper" into the search engine and GOLD. people who have MY story...they get it. and these strangers made me feel so much better. and hopefully tomorrow i can better enjoy ben's "wakefulness" and take it in stride. thanks for all the encouraging comments yesterday.

3 comments:

theRachel said...

I'm glad you have babycenter. I feel like I wouldn't be much help. But I'll be encouraging.

GO REBECCA!! You can do it. I love watching you be a committed momma.

The Scott Family! said...

It's funny how important this stuff is to us, eh? Nige and I just put Ty down for a nap and I said, "See, it works better" - talking about putting him down BEFORE he fell asleep. I'm a big babywise believer myself, same concept, but some people don't get it. Nigel said to me just now, "You're such a good mommy." Why? because we know our babies and these tools help us figure them out. Now that Ty is eating better (we should talk "formula" some day) and he's acting like a happy, thriving baby, I'm beginning to figure out his routine and it is soooo fulfilling. I've been waiting 6 weeks to feel this way!

Way to go Rebecca, you're doing great!!

lnewbigging said...

I learned that you never wake a sleepy baby from FRIENDS. HAHA!