Eureka!

Sleeping sitting up.  His way of protesting quiet time.

Chester has always been a little stinker when it comes to naps.  He refuses to take them, plain and simple.  Considering most babies sleep for 16 hours a day, more if they are a newborn, it's shocking how little he sleeps.  Especially when it comes to how much of a fuss he kicks up when I try to put him down for a nap.  For the last six months he's been pretty much been nap free except for when he's nursing.  Then he'll conk right out, thus ruining his feeding as well as frustrating the hell out of me when I sit for 20 extra minutes (on top of the 30 minutes a side), waiting for him to fall into deep sleep to move him.  This always resulted in him waking up.  In the first few months, he was absolutely indignant that I had the NERVE to try and move him.  He'd look around, clock his new surroundings and holler bloody murder.  Sheesh.  Nowadays he just wakes up, looks at me and smiles.  But I did notice something new happening in the last few weeks.  Two weeks ago he actually started having a couple of naps here and there.  I saw the cues - the whiney crying, the rubbing of eyes and I'd scoop him up and put him in his swing with a pacifier.  Not only did he not wriggle and protest like he normally does when I try to place him in his swing, he greedily accepted his pacifier, closed his eyes and fell right to sleep!

Last week was even better - despite stupid Daylight Savings Time switching back to Standard (which totally kicked my ass every single day when I would wake up at 6 or 7 am) he slept almost every day for at least one nap.  A couple of those days he even had two solid naps!  I was told at around six months he would start to fall into more regular patterns.  Is he actually doing things normal kids do?  Is that really possible??

The one problem is I'm still not able to do much during those rare naps.  Heaven forbid I try to make anything to eat.  Typing makes him thrash and wake up, pissed off.  Even quiet mouse clicking is intolerable.  Enough!  I really needed him to go in his crib.  The world needs to start turning again because dammit, mama has things to do.  I did try him once last week in his crib.  He slept for about 40 minutes.  Not enough for a restful sleep apparently.  My mistake was leaving his little lamp on so he wasn't in full darkness.  I was terrified that the click would wake him up!

Desperate I bought a book my naturopath recommended, The No Cry Nap Solution by Elizabeth Pantley which arrived yesterday.  I haven't read it yet but I started to leaf through it today while he was nursing.  The turning of the pages would make him buck off and swat at it though so I had to stop.  Sigh.  When he started getting a little whiney today while he was already in his swing with a pacifier, I thought I'd try something different.  I changed him, put him in his crib and got a cute little teddy bear from his basket of new baby shower toys.  I gave him a pacifier and the new toy, flicked on the mobile with the same song he uses to go to bed at night, and sat there with the lights on and read while he fiddled with his new bear.  After a couple minutes I turned all the lights off except that one lamp and within about 10 minutes, he was fast asleep.  I then turned off the lamp and sat there for a few more minutes before leaving the room.  The one bad thing was his feet were sticking through the bars of the crib!  It was probably his way of foiling  me, thinking that I wouldn't leave without moving and thus waking him.  Wrong again kid.  I left him like that.  Houdini knows how to get his feet out.  What??  Do I look new little man?  I closed the door at 3:09 pm.  He began to stir at 5:38 and woke up at 5:46!  More than two and a half hours!  What a great nap!  (Wondering how long TOO long a nap is though?)

Fresh from his FIRST ever long nap in his crib.  Yippee!

Talk about progress right?  I haven't even begun to read the book but it's already helping.  haha.  I'm hoping to make this a daily ritual.  I know it might not work every day, but I'm going to try to at least get him in the habit.  I just have to decide on establishing a time.  I'm going to try for one nap a day in the crib.  And if I dare to dream big - even two.  He actually had a short one hour nap this morning but out in the living room in his rocker, and again, not what the experts consider restorative sleep.  I was very curious to see if it affected his ability to go to sleep tonight.  We can never get him to bed before 10 pm - usually it's closer to 11, but tonight we got him in his crib by his normal time.  (The first time in a couple of weeks actually.)  He did his usual crying jag when we left the room, but fell asleep about 10 to 15 minutes later.  I`ll take that.  Let's see what time he wakes up tomorrow and start it all over again.