Nap Time!

Hazel is a great nighttime sleeper. Beginning when she was around 3 months old she started to really sleep through the night. The “technical” definition of sleeping throug the night is 5-6 hours, but Hazel started sleeping through the night much more literally- going to bed around 8-9 pm and sleeping until 5 or 6 in the morning. Every now and then she will have a few nights of waking up once or twice, but those nights are few and far between. We realized about a month and a half ago that she was getting sleepy earlier, and rather than fight it we decided to try putting her to bed a bit earlier. This pushed bed time to the 7 o’clock hour. At first we were worried that this would mean waking up at 3 or 4 am, but we quickly learned that this earlier bedtime actually meant a 10-12 hour stretch of sleep for Hazel- so it stuck.

Our nighttime routine has been the same for a few months now and every night at 7 Hazel is ready to go to sleep. We take her upstairs, give her a bath, feed her and read a story and then she goes to bed. With such a great nighttime routine one would assume that we have this whole sleep thing down pat. Well, you know what they say about assumptions… The nighttime sleep routine was a routine that Hazel seemed to easily fall into, napping on the other hand has been a completely different ball game. Our typical napping schedule goes something like this: Hazel gets sleepy wants to go to sleep, we try putting her in her crib, she screams, we pick her up and rock her, she falls asleep on us, we dare not move for fear of waking her and are stuck in a chair for half an hour when she usually wakes up startled and fussy. A few hours later, still tired, she’s ready for a nap and we repeat the whole thing, usually ending with another nap on either me or Jered, or occasionally on the floor on a blanket. This does not bode well for getting anything done during the day. It also makes for an extremely over-tired little girl. Until recently I think Hazel was getting about 1-2 hours of sleep total from 6 am until 7 pm. According to all of the books I’ve read she should be getting at least 3 hours during the day and 11-12 at night, so it goes without saying she wasn’t getting enough sleep.

Yesterday Hazel’s friend Nora came over for another play date and Nora’s mom was talking to me about a few things she was trying to help Nora sleep in her crib at night. I decided to take a few of those tips and try them out on Hazel today. The results have been amazing. Hazel took three naps today- a thirty minute nap this morning, an hour and a half (a miracle!) this afternoon, and another 30 minute nap later in the afternoon. Even more amazing- all three naps were in her crib and she went to bed at her usual 7:00 bedtime. Here are the things I did differently: I stayed in her room until she stopped fussing, laid her down with a snuggly blanket and turned on the little white noise machine so that our annoying neighbor’s glass pack wouldn’t startle her awake.

Did that make all the difference? Maybe, but more important than all of those things combined, in my opinion, was my attitude. I truly believe that this not napping in her crib problem has really been my problem. Clearly she is able to sleep in her crib and clearly she can do it during the day, I think I have just been afraid that she wouldn’t. The moment I’d lay her down and she’d start to get worked up I would feel terrible, pick her up, rock her, shush her and eventually just hold my breath until she had slept for what I decided was a decent amount of time. Now, I’m not advocating crying it out- I know it has worked for many parents, but it doesn’t feel right for me and I’m not comfortable doing it, but today I did have to take a few deep breaths to hold myself back from rushing in to pick Hazel up when she started to fuss in her crib. I started by making sure all her needs were met; fed, changed, comfortable clothes/temperature. I knew she was tired, and I knew she didn’t want to be left in her crib alone. Knowing all that I laid her down and went to sit in the glider where I usually nurse her to sleep. She fussed for a bit, but then realized that I wasn’t getting up to get her and started blowing bubbles and cooing to try to get my attention. I continued to sit in the glider and read a magazine, smiling at her but not interacting with her any more than that. Within 15 minutes she was asleep all three times. I am hoping that this will work again tomorrow- it was so nice to have two hours to get things done during the day today! Wish us luck tomorrow as we give it another whirl.

Here’s a picture of our girl all bundled up for a walk outside. It’s gotten cold here and Hazel’s winter coat is still just a bit on the big side- she doesn’t seem to mind, though!

Filed under Hazel by esther | Comments (5)