The Curse of the 45 Minute Nap

It's baaaaa-aaack. Already? The 45 minute nap reared it's ugly face so soon into our lives again. Ethan is just 8 weeks old this week....and it's back already. Sigh. I don't recall the 45 minute nap finding Braden so fast, but this is the main cause of my lack of blogging lately. Ethan used to have a blissful 2-3 hour swing nap every morning while Braden ate his breakfast and did his usual morning things while mommy sipped her coffee and blogged. Not.any.more. About every other day Ethan has 45 minute naps all day. It is a big waste of my day. Yup, I said it and I know my mommy friends know exactly what I mean.

I spend about 30 minutes getting Ethan fed and rocking him until he's asleep to lay him down. So by the time that happens he's been sleeping for at least 5-10 minutes (depending on how tired he is) and if he pulls a 45 minute nap? Then that only gives me about 35ish minutes to myself to get stuff done around the house.

On a 45 minute nap day? I want to pull out all my hair. Braden senses this and becomes extra naughty. I'm trying to put Baby Brother to sleep in his room in the glider and Big Brother comes bounding in like a baby elephant, hides in Ethan's closet and starts kicking the door. He knows I can't yell at him because I have a trying-to-get-to-sleep baby in my arms, and if I have to rinse-lather-repeat this scenario all day...I'm just fried by the end of it.

But, luckily there is a silver lining to this. Yesterday was a 45 minute nap day, for the most part, and it's like he saves his sleep for night time and slept over 8 hours last night. So that? I will happily take it. He already has wake periods of up to 4 hours if he is having an I-don't-want-to-nap-day...but then he happily goes to bed at night for a long stretch.           

So why the 45 minute nap? I did read Baby Wise when I was pregnant with Braden and decided it wouldn't work for my family, but they coined the term "45 minute intruder" nap and it is SO true. We have sleep cycles of light-deep-light and that 2nd "light" phase comes in at 45 minutes. Eventually they are supposed to outgrow it, and Braden did when we sleep trained him.        

I know there's nothing I can do, Ethan is way too young to sleep train, so I guess I'll just have to suck it up on the 45 minute nap days and pray that he keeps having good nighttime sleeps.

Has your family fallen victim to the 45 minute nap? And now, I leave you with cute baby pictures that could have been cuter if I didn't take them so late in the day when my natural light was disappearing....but you get the point!

                   

Braden News

It feels like I haven't blogged forever! Sometimes I feel like I just can't keep up to the fast pace our life is set at right now. How is it June 14th already? The month is almost half gone. Braden is developing so fast. He's definitely slowed down on the physical growing part...he shot up the growth charts so fast at 1 month, but now he's at a plateau, and I imagine he will just slowly gain until we start solids at 6 months. So lately we have been...

Hanging out naked! And by "we", I mean just him! I give him a little nudey bum time before his bath every night now. And sucking his thumb TONS lately. He's getting really, really good hand-eye coordination. When he is in his car seat, I have this:

And he is getting so good at batting the little bugs with his hands. Jay says we should find a little plush volleyball so he can practice his spiking! P.S. I highly recommend this toy to add to your bucket car seat handle, it keeps him VERY entertained! It's $20 at Babies R Us but I scored it for $4 from a consignment sale! He has also enjoyed a lot of drooling:

And even more tummy time lately...and tolerating it much, much more!

So that's a new diaper I've tried on him. I feel like I'm cheating on my FuzziBunz! This is a Goodmama "One" all-in-one diaper. I love my FB's, but they have so few prints that I have to seek elsewhere. Check out this gallery for all of Goodmama's prints...they are adorable. I've got a couple more coming in the mail. If I don't end up liking them much, then I'll just sell them on DiaperSwappers.com which I've already sold one of my non-FB's!

We are now in a consistent schedule which I am so thankful for!! Bedtime is 8-8:30 and wake-time is usually 8 or shortly after, but I will let him get up if he is up at 7. First morning nap is 2 hours after wake-time and has consistently been 1.5 - 1.75 hrs! No more morning 45 minute nap, which is great. Second nap I really try and make him stay awake at least 2 hours in between, but sometimes it's hard...and this nap still is always 45 minutes. I'm hoping that magically one day it will be longer. Another 2ish hours later and then the third nap varies in length from 45 mins to about 1.5 hours. So three naps a day and 12 hours of sleep time at night.

Sleep training was on hiatus for 2 nights because he was congested, but he's over that now. The last 2 nights we've been getting back on track and he's only woken up once after 8 hrs the first night and 9 hrs last night. Since he's waking up between 5 & 6...he feels very rested and has a hard time self-soothing. So I'm modifying the training, letting him fuss for about 20-30 minutes and then making sure he's calm, I'll feed him, and he'll go back to sleep for another 2.5-3 hours. I think that with time this last wake-up will just extend until it really is his wake-time.

I miiiiiiiiiiiiight have to start solids earlier than I intended! I couldn't believe him last night at his Grandpa Schultz's birthday party! We were all eating cake for dessert, he was in the high chair, and he was literally smacking his lips! He was also following Carol's fork from her plate up to her mouth as she held him later. It's unbelievable! I really do want to hold off until 6 months, it's only 1.5 months to go...but we'll see how it goes in the next while, maybe I'll start him at 5.5 months or something!