Sleeping

I can't seem to figure out the sleeping thing. My sleeping, the baby's sleeping, etc. For instance - Wednesday night she did great - slept from about 11 til 5:18am. Yay! Then at just after 7 I brought her into bed with me so we could snuggle (read: I just wasn't ready to get up). It was lovely and after about an hour she fell asleep again hard core. Her baby snores are too adorable. I also got some extra winks and woke up feeling great.

But is that too much? Should we be getting up at 7 and starting our day so then she can have a morning nap?

Yesterday she slept almost all afternoon and I feared for her sleeping situation last night but she wasn't interested when I tred to stimulate her (changing diapers, bringing her home from the office, etc).

Sure enough she ate at about 11 and then again at 3 - ugh! She wouldn't go back down at 4 and by 6 I brought her in with me where we slept a little bit.

Am I still supposed to "sleep when the baby sleeps" (as I was doing this morning...) or are we past that and I need to suck it up and get out of bed at a normal time like a normal adult?

And when she is on a normal napping schedule (which I assume she will be...) I need to figure out how to get my work schedule around that... I can set up a pack-and-play at the office but it won't be her crib and it won't be dark...it can be reasonably quiet but there's no window coverings and we will have to...you know, work.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by figuring it all out. I know I tend to make mountains out of molehills but right now that's what I do. I know this is just one thing in a litany of things that we will have to figure out as we go along.

Comments

Kate said…
I'll let the other mommas help you with this one, that's for sure! Just know that I'm thinking about you!
9:12 AM
Cellomama said…
It's always a tough call with the sleep thing. I tended to follow Kate's natural lead - probably too much, frankly. The best advice I can give you is to check out the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Marc Weissbluth. I still pull that out from time to time. What I love is that the book gives you general averages as to when kids will start napping, when the naps will be, how long, etc. While each child is different, this book at least gives an average (e.g. 85% of 6-month-olds will do XYZ) that I used as a 'goal' to try to come up with a structure, because Kate didn't ever fall into one naturally.
9:23 AM
Cellomama said…
Oh - and I don't remember when it started, but Kate's "morning nap" was usually quite early. I mean, within a couple hours of waking. Then she'd be up for a few hours until her first afternoon nap, and then she'd take another short nap around 4-5 PM. So her being up and then falling asleep with you could be the start of that nap. And if you need the sleep, sleep when she does. Heck, I still do. I'm a better mom if I'm rested.
9:25 AM
carrster said…
I am reading HEALTHY SLEEP HABITS.... but sometimes it is frustrating because Dahlia is no where near those 'goals.' I chalk it up to her being a bit early so a bit 'behind' with some of those timelines. Ah well...we'll figure it out, right?
10:07 AM
Cellomama said…
Yeah, Kate was never really there, either, but it at least gave me something to shoot for.

Again, part of that was me enabling her, though (when she was older than Dahlia, of course). I mean, it's no one's fault but mine she didn't sleep through the night until 18 months!!
1:06 PM
Test said…
Try figuring it out when she is 2 months behind. Urgh. I finally gave up and let Claire take full lead. As far as I can tell she can never get too much sleep. I think I can tell (better than Pete) when she needs to take a nap and I just go into her room to see how she will do and she usually tells me yea/nay.

She has never really had a nap schedule and the only thing we can count on is she will go down and wake up at the same time each night/morning. Outside of that we have to wing it which makes it rather difficult when trying to do something during the day... I now go to bed as early as 9:00pm so that I can be ready to get up with her when she wakes up pre-dawn.

And I'm with Laurie. I still take a nap with her sometimes. Despite the need to get some work done around the house I am a much nicer mommy when I have had a chance to catch up on my zzz's.
9:31 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I should've done this a year ago....

Image
A pandemic game time & conversation (via Zoom)   Well, we're about 13 months into this pandemic and I should've been back blogging then. I mean, I was home an awful lot. I could've done it. But I didn't. I wrote in my actual journal but that's a crazy mish-mash of stuff. This would've been fun to keep just pandemic stuff. Ah well, live and learn. I'll be ready for the next one (no, no, I won't). It's been a year...a year of ups and downs; of being laid off and re-hired; of wondering what to do with my life and starting grad school. We got fish, we got two kittens. What a year.  Kids have mostly been troopers but there have been some tough days. August went back to hybrid last fall, then everything stopped for a while and went back to 5 days a week in February - hooray! Dahlia finally got to start hybrid in.....February? (I can't remember) and then started back in person 4 days a week...but after her first 4 days she was identified as a "
Read more

Penguin Shenanigans

Image
For our 2020 Winter Reading program, there wasn't an overall theme. I decided to create my own theme. And the Penguins took over the library! I printed out real-to-life sized photographs of penguins...an Emperor, a Fairy, a Chinstrap and a Galapagos Penguin to be exact. I put them on the walls in one area. My hope was that kids would stand next to them and measure up - and they sure did! It put a smile on my face every time. Above each penguin I included some facts. Usually where they lived, what they ate and any quirky stuff about them. It's always great to be able to provide a little learning opportunity along the way. We also included penguin voting. I always think it's fun to add a pre-math activity when I can. I made 4 buckets with a photo of each of the aforementioned penguins. Kids (& adults) were able to ask for a "voting token" (ie: a saved bottle cap) at the desk and then put it in the bucket of their choice. It was fun hearing t
Read more

I figured it out....

Image
and IT'S A GIRL!! I'll do a proper introduction later and the whole story and everything but in the meantime, we had a baby girl. 2:15pm on Friday afternoon (I posted at, what? 10;30am? You do the math!!). Her name is Dahlia Marie and she weighed in at a whopping 6lbs even. 19 1/4" long and so incredibly gorgeous (although, I might be a wee bit biased). The birth was the most amazing experience I've ever been through and my mind is still, well, blown, quite frankly. I am so tired though...time for a quick nap before we try to feed again.
Read more