Before William was born, I read and read and read. I read about sleep training, breastfeeding, sibling rivalry, solid foods, picky eating. You name it, I read about it. I was particularly concerned with sleep training though. I am someone who struggles with sleep on a nightly basis. I've never slept very well and really need 9-10 hours each night to feel fully rested, and I was concerned about the lack of sleep all new parents must go through. I must have read half a dozen books on the subject.
As mentioned before, I was going to put him on a schedule, and have him sleeping through the night by 3 months! The day time schedule didn't really work out, but we did develop a pre-bed routine when Will was about 2 weeks old, that we still follow today. That routine, plus the tips that all those books gave me, did result in him sleeping 12-13 hours each night, starting at around 3.5 months old. Of course, I don't know if the routine and tips really had anything to do with it, or if William is just a good sleeper (I suspect the latter). So I had really focused on night sleep, and with good results! What I sort of forgot about however, was day time naps. I figured they would just happen (ha!), and in the beginning they did. Will slept easily and everywhere: in his vibrating chair, in his car seat, on my chest, in the ergo carrier, in the swing . . . everywhere but his crib. You see, I wanted to keep an eye on him while he slept and I went about my day. It was so nice to be able to take him with me while he slept, and be able to watch him. Unfortunately this created a monster!
Starting at around 2 months, he no longer would sleep on my chest or in the vibrating chair. He would and did sleep great in his swing though, and we developed a routine around that swing. He would wake up for the day at 8am, go down for a morning nap at around 9am. And go down for a 4 hour long afternoon nap at 12p. In the back of my head, I knew this was unsustainable. After all, the swing has a weight rating of 25lbs. He won't be able to nap in that thing forever. Not to mention, once he got older, he'd be able to escape from it. Something clearly needed to be done, but I was loathe to change the schedule or routine. I loved my big chunk of alone time each afternoon! I did make a few weak attempts at having him nap in his crib (that ultimately failed), but that was only for the morning nap. This was pretty much the status quo up until two weeks ago.
Suddenly he stopped having great naps in the swing! When I did some reading about this, I found out that they go through a sleep transition right around 4 months, where they no longer need quite so much sleep. Since he had stopped sleeping so well in the swing, I figured this was a great time to introduce William to the crib. After all, at night, he sleeps GREAT in the crib. He goes down drowsy, but awake. If he wakes during the night, he puts himself back to sleep. I figured that day time sleep couldn't be that much different, right? Oh how wrong I was! Its been about a week of trying to get him to sleep in the crib, and it has been a nightmare. He just refuses to do it! I am going to be persistent and hope for the best, but boy, I sure am discouraged.
In some ways, I feel like I have already 'ruined' this child in terms of being able to have a quality nap schedule. I eagerly look forward to how I will do things differently with the next kid. In the mean time though, I know I just need to keep plugging away and being consistent. Better that I am starting a nap routine at 4 months than 6 or 8 months! I just hope I see some progress soon!
Michael made up a little ditty to comemorate this time in our lives:
Oh Will, who can we tell?
You eat your hands
You pee your pants
And you nap . . . poorly!
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