Sleep Part 3

Back in my Sleep Part 2 post I mentioned that naps are a completely different situation with Baby. Because I don't always want to nap when she naps (although sometimes I do indulge and it's glorious to cuddle up and sleep for a couple of hours!) it makes naps tricky for us. As she gets older she is more and more interested in what's happening around her and finds it much harder to settle down even when she's fall flat on her face tired. She used to nap anywhere, anytime but those days are gone. Now, she usually naps on my lap and I read...which is also nice but very limiting to my movement as you can imagine. I usually just sit upstairs on the couch and don't take any 'special' steps to "nap-ify" the environment. Nurse and sleep. Life is good. However, even napping on my lap lately hasn't been terribly successful. I should say that we don't have Baby on a nap schedule. She naps when she's tired and we accommodate that as much as possible. She does have a natural schedule or rhythm that is very obvious. She is usually tired about 1.5 - 2 hours after waking up...pretty much like clockwork. Most days she likes a small cat nap early afternoon and then a 2 hour nap in the mid to late afternoon time frame.

When the naps on my lap started getting shorter and the dark circles and eye rubbing started getting more common, I started napping with her more regularly. Curtains closed and in our bed. As I said earlier, I do like to indulge in that once in a while but I'm not usually in need of a 2 hour nap every day so a lot of times I would just lay there with her. Again, not a bad thing to do. But, with S working really long hours I am finding that I really need some "time" to sort of decompress. Some "me" time, whatever that may be at the time. You, clever readers, are probably already thinking "why not leave the baby in the bed for a nap and have "me time" then!" Yes, that is very clever. For those of you who know me well, having a baby has brought out my paranoid side. I'm terrified of leaving her on our bed alone now that she's more mobile. Even though our bed is a platform bed and not far off the ground, I'm afraid she'll fall. And if I'm on a different floor, I might not hear her. So, now what. Well, awhile ago I mentioned that we were toying with the idea of a crib for naps and before we go to bed. We decided last week or so to get one. It took us a couple of weeks I think to set it up but we finally set it up last night. It's set up in our bedroom and fits fairly well. Last night, I nursed Baby and laid her down in it...she looked around about 10 seconds, rolled over and went to sleep. Cute. She was only in it for about an hour and then we brought her to bed with us for the night. She also had her morning nap in it this morning. It was a short one - less than 1/2 hour but she fell asleep as soon as she lay down and seemed to enjoy having space to spread out.

I doubt our naps together will end altogether. Especially on the weekend when all 3 of us like to share the bed to have lazy afternoon naps.

I snuck out to take the photo below. Carmen the cat somehow managed to sneak into the bed for this particular nap!