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!
