A day late.
What can I say, its been a battlefield around here, fighting off those horrible naps and all. You know, the ones where your bottle is made for you, you get placed in a nice clean crib with your favorite blankie and pillow, your momma lovingly strokes your face and kisses your sleepy cheeks. Your room is a nice 77 degrees, the quit hum of the white noise machine and ceiling fan. A dry diaper and clean hands and feet. All is well in the world, you get ready to close your little eyes and drift into la-la land, mommy starts gathering all the dirty clothes around the house humming a little tune because the next hour is quiet time, and mid-throw into the washing machine…wwwwwaaaaaAAAAAHHHHHHHHH.
Hhmmm. Wet diaper? Dirty diaper? No binky? Teeth hurting?
No. No. No. and Maybe so I give tylenol.
I gently lay you down onto your pillow (yes, I have a pillow in my toddlers crib), rub your back and remind you that its ‘ni-night time,’ turn around and walk out the door, avoiding too much eye contact because your sad eyes are like daggers to my heart. I set the timer on my blackberry for 10 minutes, sometimes that’s all you need and you fall fast asleep. After 10 minutes of ear-piercing yells and “NO NO NO’s”, I walk back in, check diaper for pee/poo, make sure there are no obvious signs of bleeding or injuries, that your blankie and binky are in arms reach, rub your back and remind you again that its “ni-night time,” turn around and walk out the door, avoiding eye contact of course because now the mom guilt is starting to feel really heavy on my back. This time, timer set for 15 minutes. I go downstairs and leave the monitor upstairs to give myself a “break” from the guilt, because of course deep down I just want to run in and rescue you even though I know that will not solve the issue at hand. Empty the dishwasher, make an iced coffee for a pick-me-up, and head back to check on you. Typically, by this time you are fast asleep, but on some days, the cries carry on and I do the walk in, check diaper run through onelast time. Set timer for 15 more minutes. I usually sit on the couch outside your nursery, crossing my fingers that you will fall asleep and praying that I am doing the right thing. While this doesn’t happen often, its hard not to second guess yourself, even if this is what has worked many times in the past. The max time is 40 minutes, if you have not fallen asleep by then we will go downstairs and try again later. 40 minutes is a time that we decided on after doing research and discussing it with your pediatrician. If you are seriously screaming bloody murder, we do no timers and are done with nap-time then and there.
What do I do to tackle a difficult nap day? I have tried many, many different approaches, and no one works for every child, trust me!
#1: I do not feel guilty when she cries. I love my daughter more than anything and always have her best interest in mind. She will not remember after a nice, hour-long nap to get her well rested that she had to cry herself to sleep for a bit. I know that 40 minutes may sound like a long time for periods of crying, but I am a firm believer that children need to learn to self-soothe, combined with gentle encouragement from the parents that it is in fact sleep time and they will not be missing anything all that exciting on Nick Jr. Thats what TIVO is for anyway.
#2: I make sure that if my husband is home, he is backing me up and not rushing in to rescue the screaming baby. We both agreed on this method after trying many others and it works for us and seems to work for O, most days.
#3: If your baby is a co-sleeper and co-sleeping for naps work for you, then by all means, whatever it takes to have a well rested child. O is not one of those kids, she refuses to sleep with anyone unless you have at least an hour to fight with her to sleep.
#4: Be flexibile with your plans for the day. Typically we have a really loose schedule and I try to fit things in around when O sleeps. Granted, I do not think that her nap schedule should run every single day, but if it is nothing pressing then I wait until she wakes up. This also works pretty well for us since she is not in daycare and one or both of us is home with her daily. She will usually nap from 8:30-10, 1-2 and 4-5, in between I run any errands I may have for the day and that works for us.
#5: Do things between naps that will wear them out. We run around the house, go outside, to the park down the street, put some water in the little blow up pool, play “chase,” etc. Usually this makes for a tuckered out baby and a more restful nap.
#6: Get important things done during nap-times, dont get sucked into the facebook/e-mail/blogging world if you have things on your to-do list that have not been done. It is so easy to let a quick couple minutes turned into the entire naptime which can sour your mood when little one wakes up and you have a mile long list left to do.
#7: Make nap-time as positive as possible, have a smile on your face when you put your child down in their crib, and a smile when you pick them up after the nap is over. Do NOT smile if you are going in to lay them back down, they will think you are ready to play. Make playtime after the nap as fun as possible and plan on feeding them a yummy snack.
#8: When all else fails, be prepared to take care of a zombie sleepy baby for the rest of the day!
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