Monday, May 28, 2007

Times are changing

I feel the need to update everyone on the current sleep patterns in my house. Once again, things have changed dramatically. I am not sure how I feel about these new developments, but I definitely think things are getting better. Well, I am not sure if they are better. How about, I definitely think things are changing.

Here is the good news - Porgie has only been waking once per night. Sometimes, she doesn't wake me at all. Although this seems like a blessing, it is actually making some aspects of my life more difficult. Instead of sleeping until 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning, Porgie is waking up at 6:00 or 6:30. That my friends, kind of sucks.

Also, Porgie's napping schedule is changing. When Porgie wakes up at 6:00 in the morning, she is exhausted by 9:00. I put her down for a nap around this time, and she will sleep for hours. However, she has been refusing her afternoon nap fairly regularly. She will lay awake in her crib for an hour playing and babbling, until I finally get her back up. On days when she doesn't take an afternoon nap, she is extremely fussy after 5:00. She will whine and cry for the last few hours of the day - the time when I am getting tired and cranky myself. Not a good combination.

On other days, Porgie will take both her morning and afternoon nap. Although she is in a much better mood in the evening, she has lots of trouble going to sleep at night. We always do the same routine at night - bath, pajamas, books, bottle, and crib. In the past, she would always go right to sleep. However, she now rolls around and plays for hours. HOURS. Last night I laid her down at 8:00 and she didn't go to sleep until 10:00. It is not too bad, because she doesn't cry or whine in her crib. She just plays for HOURS.

So, I am currently considering going down to one nap per day. The tricky part will be moving the nap to early afternoon instead of mid-morning. I should probably mention that Porgie is not a morning baby. She is generally a pain in the ass in the morning. By the time 9:00 rolls around, I am usually running to put her down for a nap. I think this transition is going to be harder for me than for her.

7 comments:

Ashley said...

oh my goodness, she reminds me soooo much of Aiden! He used to wake (still does) between 5-6 and then would nap around 9 and again around 2. When we first switched to one nap it would be around 10-11 and then I was able to slowly move it back and now he naps around noon. It is so hard to figure out what is going to work. I dont know if you are a morning person but getting out in the morning used to help to keep Aiden awake longer. We still do our grocery shopping around 7-8 in the morning, unless Caileigh is sleeping and then I NEVER wake a sleeping baby! LOL

Anonymous said...

Yes, things are always changing. Right now my baby is doing insane sleeping things. My husband is still trying to get her to sleep two hours after bedtime. I don't know what is going on. I hope you can catch on to what your baby needs and help to arrange it for her, and that she doesn't foil your plans!

Anth said...

Oh ugh. I'm sorry. That blows.

Sometimes Baby E won't take one of her naps and I get freaked that she's trying to go down to one nap and I am soooo not okay with that. That's MY time!

Anonymous said...

Yep, you're just going to have to try different things until you find what works for everyone.

What about not letting her sleep more than 2 hours in the morning and then trying an afternoon nap at around 3:00 but limiting it to one hour? I know, easier suggested than done!

My son quit taking a second nap at 8 months old! He wakes up around 7 or 7:30, naps from 11:30-1:30 (sometimes he'll go for 2 1/2 hours but I don't let him go past that) and then bedtime is 8:00. I occasionally have the same issue with my husband as you do being too loud in the morning and waking the baby. I've finally told him if I don't get the sleep I need, he doesn't get the sex he needs...'cause I'm too tired! For some reason that seemed to motivate him to be as quiet as possible in the mornings. :)

Bon said...

yep, welcome to my schedule. like i was just lamenting over at my place, we have some early morning problems with O...at least in the sense that morning is categorically a problem for me. :)

i've managed to keep O on a two nap schedule thus far...he gets up early-ish, goes down for a nap around 9, gets up at 10:30 or 11, and then naps again about 1 or 1:30. neither of his naps are super long, sometimes only an hour, sometimes two. if they go longer, especially in the morning, i wake him (this is pretty rare). he goes to bed about 7:30. i find if he doesn't sleep in the afternoon, he's awake longer at night, weirdly...

wishing you luck getting some rest in all this.

Em said...

Your mirroring my house! i posted simular about a month ago. Billy gets up anything between 530am-7am early if he had the choice, he likes to go back to bed at 9am but i now keep him up untill 1030am then he'll have a hour+ and no afternoon sleep but he goes to bed earlier now its normally about 630-7pm. I hate loosing my time when he doesnt nap!

karla said...

I can definetely see the issue there. It's like nap times either drive you insane, or more insane.

I hope this transition in Porgie's sleeping habits work out for you soon enough.