Max's Naps

We stayed out too long the other day and by the time we got home Max was very tired. I went out to feed the horses and when I came in the conversation went like this:

Erin: "Did Max go down for his nap okay?"
Chris (with a look on his face kind of like he's telling me something I didn't know): "Yeah, he went down great. He's really easy to put down. You just bundle him and hold him for a few minutes and he's out."
Erin (after staring at him for a minute): "That's fantastic. Do you know how long it took me to get him to go down like that? Six weeks!"

For the first couple months of his life, Max was on the EASY (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) schedule recommended by the Baby Whisperer. It worked perfectly. He was up for an hour eating, getting his diaper changed, and just hanging out. He would get a little tired and show you by yawning really big, you would put him to bed, and he would sleep for two hours. The cycle would then repeat itself. It was sooooo EASY.

Then somewhere around two or three months old everything changed, as babies do. He didn't yawn or do anything to indicate to me that he was getting sleepy. He would usually just start getting really fussy and by the time I was putting him down, he was crying. I would try and try to find that "perfect window of opportunity" where you can put a baby to sleep without them crying. I found it ONE time in all those weeks. Six weeks.

Six weeks of a crying, overtired baby who didn't know how to put himself to sleep. Six weeks of me having no clue what to do and trying different things to try to get him to go down easily for naps. Six weeks of me absolutely dreading the moment when I knew he would need to go down and praying it wouldn't involve him screaming at the top of his lungs for an indefinite period of time - whether or not I was holding him. Six weeks of 20 min. - three hour naps (I could NEVER tell how long he was going to sleep), and if it was 20 min., a cranky baby who wasn't ready to go back down to sleep but hadn't gotten enough sleep to be happy and content to play on his own and I would get nothing done but holding him. Six weeks of me calling friend after friend asking what they did to get their baby to sleep and receiving a lot of "I know what you're going through" - which actually always made me feel better. There were brief periods of respite when I thought he finally was getting it and would go down with just some moaning or squirming. But two or three days later it was all off again. It was a loooooonnnnggg six weeks.

I finally got a schedule worked out that worked for him and me. Friends and Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child helped give me ideas. It also helped that he got better control of his hands and his emotions and he doesn't just start crying when he's getting tired. It may sound funny to say a five-month-old has better control of his emotions but that's what it seems like - it probably helps that he's not overly tired all day.

Now he starts rubbing his eyes and getting a little fussy. When I take him in his room, we close the blinds (I have to remember to open them when he wakes up), and he immediately buries his head in my shoulder and rubs his eyes some more (very cute). We then put on a little soft music, I give him his binky, I bundle him (I will explain why I still bundle my five-month-old in another post), and then I hold him in my arms for the length of the first song. His eyes immediately close when I pull him close to me and they flutter open when I put him in his crib and that's it. I have an hour or two, depending on the time of day, to myself as he sleeps peacefully. I go for a horseback ride since the monitor reaches to the arena or clean the house or any number of things. The best part is he is now to the point where you can skip steps and he still goes down easily.

On Sunday nights when I look to the week ahead and the 50+ hours that I will be alone with my son, I am no longer dying to switch places with Chris and I actually look forward to my week. Life is so good right now. But don't worry, I have no illusions that this will actually last. This, as everything else in his life, is just a phase and, unfortunately, it too will pass and I will be back to a crying baby and 20 min. naps for some unknown length of time.