psa for anyone with short nappers
May 7, 2015 13:16:10 GMT -5
Post by ljob22 on May 7, 2015 13:16:10 GMT -5
my first son only napped 45 min at a time and it drove me mad. LO (4 months and a week) started going to short naps once i ditched the swaddle a couple weeks ago. we have days of 20-45 min naps, with the occasionally 60-90 min stretch, usually later in the day. some days she has to nap on the go b/c of school drop off/pick up or other things for my middle son, so no two days are ever really the same (not ideal, i know).
yesterday afternoon she went down around 12:45, and at 1:15pm i started putting my boys down. right as i put the first one down i heard her start to fuss and make noise. i wanted to get the boys down and power through, but by the time i was finishing up the second around 1:30 her cries had ~ escalated and i was feeling like a horrific mom. i almost left my son's room to get her but figured i only needed about 2-3 more min and it would make putting him down a lot tougher if i had to leave and then bring her back in. i walk out his door and don't hear a thing. she put herself back to sleep. i went from feeling horrible to feeling like a genius. she was never screaming, but her cries had definitely escalated to a point where normally i would have gone in. i tried the same thing today when she hit the 45 min mark. she didn't scream, but was fussing almost to the point of crying. i watched her on the monitor and she would take breaks and turn her head to the side (usually indication she is gonna go back to sleep) and sure enough after fussing on and off for almost 15 min she fell back asleep and has been out another hour so far.
i wonder if i messed up with my first and if i'd left him a little longer he also would have learned to put himself back to sleep earlier when napping and saved himself a lot of crankiness and overtired days, and saved me a lot of stress.
so....figured i'd post this and just let you know that for those of you struggling with the same issues i've struggled with, it might be worth it to leave LO a little longer and see if they can put themselves back down. it doesn't seem like CIO to me, though there may be some people on here who equate what i'm doing with that, but so far it is working for me and maybe it will work for you.
yesterday afternoon she went down around 12:45, and at 1:15pm i started putting my boys down. right as i put the first one down i heard her start to fuss and make noise. i wanted to get the boys down and power through, but by the time i was finishing up the second around 1:30 her cries had ~ escalated and i was feeling like a horrific mom. i almost left my son's room to get her but figured i only needed about 2-3 more min and it would make putting him down a lot tougher if i had to leave and then bring her back in. i walk out his door and don't hear a thing. she put herself back to sleep. i went from feeling horrible to feeling like a genius. she was never screaming, but her cries had definitely escalated to a point where normally i would have gone in. i tried the same thing today when she hit the 45 min mark. she didn't scream, but was fussing almost to the point of crying. i watched her on the monitor and she would take breaks and turn her head to the side (usually indication she is gonna go back to sleep) and sure enough after fussing on and off for almost 15 min she fell back asleep and has been out another hour so far.
i wonder if i messed up with my first and if i'd left him a little longer he also would have learned to put himself back to sleep earlier when napping and saved himself a lot of crankiness and overtired days, and saved me a lot of stress.
so....figured i'd post this and just let you know that for those of you struggling with the same issues i've struggled with, it might be worth it to leave LO a little longer and see if they can put themselves back down. it doesn't seem like CIO to me, though there may be some people on here who equate what i'm doing with that, but so far it is working for me and maybe it will work for you.
?
team pink 
