One of my biggest battles with Calan is napping. Why does it have to be so hard? From birth, he was always a pretty alert baby. He learned pretty early how to play with his feet and sing to himself to stay awake in his bed. I know I should be happy that he is just happy and content, but as his mother, I know that he needs his sleep.
Early on, he would not nap in his crib and took almost all naps in his bouncy chair. Which I am sure sounds good, but it was usually a struggle for me to get him to do that and then to try and keep him asleep in it was even more ridiculous. He is an incredibly light sleeper, which let me tell you is pretty annoying. I would love to sneak in his room and watch him sleep, but the second I turn his door knob, he is up. He is amazing.
After realizing that naps in the bouncy chair were not a solution, I began trying everything to get him to nap in his crib and to have good long naps. As a stay-at-home mom, I feel like I have 2 main jobs: Make sure he is fed well and make sure he sleeps well. I was pretty stressed out for awhile, not knowing if I would ever get him to sleep well.
I can safely say he is finally a good sleeper. It took a lot of patients and being consistent, but I can now get him to sleep 1.5 to 2 hours per nap. At 8 months, he takes two naps a day and sleeps between 3 and 4 hours during the day.
I had to figure out my son. I had to realize his sleeping pattern and figure out the perfect wake time amount in order to get him to sleep. It is amazing to me how even if I am off by just a little bit, naps become a struggle. When he was younger, I realized he needed very little wake time between his morning wakeup and his first nap. If I put him back down after just 45 minutes of being awake, he would sleep 2 to 2.5 hours. Now, I have realized that 2 hours is the perfect amount.
Like everything, naps were a huge trial and error and learning experience for me. I can only do so much, but I can't make a baby sleep.
I have decided on a few things that hopefully will help me when there is 2 of them. Obviously, my baby girl will need more naps than Calan and Calan will need a quiet place to nap. So, even though they will be sharing a room, I will have a pack-n-play setup in the spare bedroom for either child to take their nap in (whomever's turn it maybe). I also think that while I am sure our baby girl will nap sometimes in her swing or bouncy chair out with us, I am going to make sure to put her in another room sometimes, so that Calan and I can have some true one-on-one time.
Hopefully, some of the lessons I learned with Calan will carry over and like a lot of things, I am sure that I am not going to stress over it. I know that if I am consistent and patient, it will work out.
If you are having troubles with naps, I loved this blog on troubleshooting: http://www.babywisemom.com/2009/12/naps-troubleshooting-revised-and.html.
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