Anna and Troy’s Weblog

Tuesday May 26^th 2009

Dear Emerson:

Today you are three months and 26 days old.

THE NAPPING DILEMMA

So, we have yet to resolve the ongoing napping dilemma.  While I have noticed that you have started to show more consistent signs of daytime sleepiness, you are still adamantly against an actual nap (which shall here-on-out be defined as: an extended period of daytime sleeping, preferably over one hour, which occurs in said baby’s own sleeping apparatus, during which, the mommy may exit the chamber of slumber and GET SHIT DONE!).  Presently, the only way I can get you to sleep for an extended period of time is to lie down with you.  The minute I try to set you down in your own bed, you invariably and immediately wake up.

I am really not sure what to do about this problem.

I am going to start with a modest goal: ONE consistent afternoon nap.  I am going to try to have you go to sleep sometime between one and two o’clock each day.  I think the timing alone will be the first goal – trying to establish some sort of schedule.  Then perhaps we can work on getting you to sleep in your own bed.  Baby steps.   Baby steps.

Love,

Mommy

Thursday May 28, 2009

Dear Emerson:

Today you are three months and 28 days old.

TRIUMPH?!?!

It is 1:38 pm, and you are asleep – in your own bed.

I am not holding my breath, but this could be a FIRST.  The first time I put you down for a nap in your pack-n-play (awake) and you actually (gasp) FELL ASLEEP.  On your own.  In YOUR BED.  If this truth holds, do you understand what a MONUMENTAL ACHIEVEMENT has been witnessed on this day in the household of Baeten?

Despite many people telling me otherwise, I have generally been an opponent of the “let your baby cry” school of childrearing – especially for babies your age.  I base this opinion on absolutely no scientific evidence or any personal experience.  It is an opinion of pure instinct.  It seems like letting a child “cry it out” before said child is able to really reason, or have any real concept of cause and effect is unnecessarily cruel.  I think that you are too little to really know why you are crying or be deliberately unreasonable.  So for me not to attend to you is to tell you that I don’t care about your distress, physical and/or emotional, and that just isn’t the way I want our relationship to start.

That being said, I will let you fuss and cry a little.  The flip side of my previous comment is that I don’t want you to turn into a spoiled brat that lives in a world built around immediate gratification.  Also, it sometimes happens that the circumstances of life prevent me from addressing your displeasure IMMEDIATELY.  But, as far as nap and bedtime attempts go, I have always gone and gotten you when your crying passed “displeasure” and reached a timbre of actual distress.

As previously documented, the Battle for the Nap has been epic and ongoing.

Up until today, here is a breakdown of our general nap time routine:

1. I nurse you in the bedroom, and if I am really lucky, you get sleepy while you are eating.
2. I burp you and lull you to sleep in my arms.
3. I put you in your bed.
4. You IMMEDIATELY wake up.
5. You fuss fuss fuss….eventually developing into a full blown crying fit.  This process can occur in seconds or can be stretched over 10 or 15 minutes.
6. I pick you up.
7. You stop crying.
8. I lull you back to sleep in my arms.
9. We nap together on the bed.
10. As soon as I get out of bed, you wake up.

Today, I decided to try something new.  I fed you, burped you, and put you in your bed – fully awake.  Then I went into the kitchen and made myself a salad.  I decided that, barring hysteria, I was going to let you fuss and cry until I had eaten my salad.  I call this the “Salad Method” of baby sleep philosophy.

You fussed.

You cried (although not with the escalating ferocity that you typically display).

I ate.

And then, as I chewed a bite of tomato……..God descended from the heavens on his silvery white steed of compassion and mercy, floated into our bedroom, hovered over your perfect little baby face, and bestowed tiny butterfly kisses of drowsiness upon you.  And you slept.

Until now.

Now you are SCREAMING.

SCCCRRRRREEEEAAAAMMMMIINNNGGGGGG!!!!

It is 2:03 pm.

Almost a half an hour.

Baby steps.  Baby steps.

Half an hour IS progress.

Love,

Mommy