sleeping habits
Maddie Revises Her Napping Schedule
Maddie is in the process of dropping her second nap, but it’s not shaping up to be a seamless process. We are trying to let Maddie guide the process, but so far, she’s changing the rules on a day-to-day basis.
The napping process is up in the air for now. There are days with short naps, longs naps and even days with no naps. The days with no naps produce one cranky little muffin who is ready to snap at a moment’s notice.
The transition period has been bumpy, but we are hoping the end is in site. As for Maddie, you know she wants to sleep, but she is fighting it left and right.
Maddie Mastering the Art of Escape
It’s hard to keep up with Maddie and her ever-expanding bag of tricks. She is 14-months-old now and has a startling grasp of the English language. Her spoken words are limited to Heyy, bye, Daaa and Maaa – but her comprehension of words and phrases is unmistakable.
When you ask Maddie for a specific item, she brings it to you.
Maddie, get your shoes – She comes back with her shoes. Maddie, please don’t do that – She stops to see if you really mean it and if you plan to do anything about it. And that’s really where the trouble has taken root.
Maddie is well aware of the things she’s not supposed to do and this has led to the development of some very mischievous tendencies.
First of all, Maddie knows she’s not supposed to open and empty her clothes drawers. Just this morning, Maddie wandered down the hall into her room and I heard her slide open the clothes drawer. I streaked down the hall to catch her in the act. She obviously heard me coming and was running out of the room when I arrived.
The drawer was wide open, but the antagonist had fled the scene.
As I was closing the drawer, I heard the oven door open in the kitchen – another forbidden activity for Maddie. (Yes, the oven was OFF!) I sprinted towards the kitchen in time to see the serial offender making good on another escape.
As I mentioned, Maddie is 14-months-old and is already employing bait and switch escape tactics. I can see this getting complicated in big hurry.
Baby Pummels Parents for Last Night’s Bungled Bedtime
Maddie and I were playing strong well after her bedtime last night. It was just 15 minutes before eight pm and I knew we were playing with house money. Surely just one night of staying up late wouldn’t have any serious repercussions. I had the baby in bed at eight, just one measly little hour past her bedtime.
I went to bad that night with the satisfaction of a job well done. It never occurred to me that I was setting myself up for a beating the next day. However, as soon I got to the crib this morning, I could tell little Miss Sunshine was far out of sorts. OK, so she was a little bit snippy and a tad whiny, but surely that would pass – or would it?
It turns out that Maddie had a great deal to say about not getting enough sleep the night before. Every time it seemed like Maddie had turned the corner, she was bent out of shape again. She had some jovial stretches in there, but for the most part, it was a rough day at the baby office.
During mealtime, Maddie’s patience would dry up the second she did not get something she wanted. Even our outdoor time was a bit sketchy. Naps also helped for brief periods of time, but Maddie made today’s lesson very clear. Get me in bed at a decent hour or you will pay the piper!
Helping Baby Beat Back the Bedtime Blues
Baby Daughter Demands Equal Driving Time
Maddie’s driving continues to improve each day, but her parallel parking is still a disaster. Actually, Maddie was great a passenger both to and from the airport during this most recent trip.
We had to find the perfect balance of snack time, bottle time and naptime but it all seemed to come together with a minimum amount of carnage during these 3-hour-marathons back and forth to Chicago.
I’ve become the designated sleep whisperer for all trips surpassing the two hour mark. If I’m not driving, I’m in the back seat sleeping with my little commando. The motion of being a passenger in any vehicle or airplane puts me right to sleep. Maddie is not the best sleeper in a moving vehicle unless she’s stuck with me.
The best way to keep the baby sleeping comfortably in the car is to know where a pacifier is at all times. This is true even if you are sleeping right along with the baby. As soon as Maddie starts to stir, my eyes snap open so I can quickly locate the closest pacifier.
Maddie opens her eyes the tiniest bit. I pop the pacifier into her mouth. Then the baby confirms that she is in the company of loved ones. In less than 8 seconds the event is over and the princess is back in dreamland. I always make sure that I am not too far behind.
For whatever reason, this shared sleep method does not work for us during air travel. But at least Maddie gets a reasonable nap before we begin to battle the forces of evil at the airport.
Curse of the Late Afternoon Nap
Few things rip into a peaceful bedtime routine like the curse of the late afternoon/early evening nap. But what can do when that’s when the baby wants to nap? Apparently, not too much.
When Maddie snags a good nap in the morning or early afternoon, bedtime is a breeze. But if she is still napping around 4pm, undesirable nuggets can hit the fan with great velocity. There was a time when we foolishly believed that any nap the baby took was a good one. Maddie has been more than happy to dispel this misconception for us.
At 5pm this afternoon we could feel our anxiety mounting as Maddie slept like the angel she truly is. At this point we knew two things were in store for us.
- Once the baby woke up, she would be in a wonderful mood.
- Once it was time for bed, it would be time to pay the piper and deal with what we like to call the wild banana syndrome.
Both of these predictions soon came to pass. Maddie woke up sweet as sugar magnolias. She was fun, charming and bursting with love. We fed her pork and vegetables and she was the perfect little lady.
But once it was time for bed, a dark shadow crept over the house. That sweet disposition tuned sour and the angry bedtime antics began. First came the angry protests that quickly escalated into an-all out temper tantrum. The nerve of these idiot parents trying to put me to bed, do I look tired to you??
Letting Maddie work it out in the crib is never a big hit either. She expects full payment of these parental follies and wants it all up front. She also demonstrates great athletic prowess by flipping from one side of the crib to the other.
In the end, it just takes a little extra love and patience along with about 45 minutes of hanging out in close proximity to the crib. Eventually the queen burns herself out and is hopefully asleep for the night. All that’s left to do is go to bed early and hope tomorrow delivers an earlier naptime that doesn’t trigger another extended witching hour.
Sleep Sack – Blessing or Curse?
From the parents point of view, the sleep sack is a blessing – but I think our darling 7-month-old daughter Maddie, would beg to differ. Once you start zipping the sleep sack up with the baby inside, you have a life and death struggle on your hands. At least that’s my little girl’s reaction to the process.
Maddie takes the advice of the famous poet named Dylan Thomas who wrote: “Do not go gentle into that good night.” She actually takes things up a notch with her “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Just the thought of being put to bed and zipped up into the sack is such an alarming prospect for my little girl. Her reaction is nothing short of bizarre. It’s like there’s broken glass or live bees waiting in the sleep for her.
For a while, I was actually fooled into opening the sack to make sure there was nothing in there that was causing any discomfort. That’s always a mistake though, because trying to zip up the sleep sack is like trying to put a rabid Rottweiler into a Tupperware container. Those pulsating legs have no interest in being tucked away and will fight until the bitter end.
The process itself actually takes a little less than a minute. Once my little angel is tucked away, all that anger and anxiety gently drifts away.
I have tried time and time again to talk her through the ordeal, but it’s becoming more and more apparent that I have to let her work it out. She doesn’t want to be soothed, she just does not want to put the outfit on.
However, as I noted a few weeks ago, putting Maddie into the crib without the sleep sack is a wasted effort. She will sleep no more than 30 minutes at a time without it. With the sack on, she sleeps anywhere from one to two hours with each nap. So that 30 to 60 seconds of raw carnage is obviously well worth the effort – its just a little bit confusing.
Daylight Savings Time Tramples Baby’s Schedule
I guess we can add Daylight Savings Time to the list of things that we mistakenly did not think would impact the baby. With Maddie’s final cranium appointment right smack in the middle of the afternoon, things were bound to be somewhat out of whack. But once we got home from the appointment, Maddie’s Dad made a severe miscalculation. This error in judgment would have far reaching negative implications for the remainder of the evening.
The miscalculation was simple enough. We got home at 4pm, which meant there was not enough time to put Maddie down for a nap before her bedtime. Had I thought it through just a little bit more, I would have taken into account that as far as Maddie was concerned, it was only 3pm. This misstep put Maddie and I on a collision course for some rough evening action of the ugly variety.
Earlier in the day on the way to Maddie’s appointment, she did take two separate naps in the car. But these naps were not long enough to cope with the ensuing sleep shortage. The only course of action was to feed her quickly and try to fend off the looming crisis.
I started Maddie off with an apricot mixture and the evening was coming together better than expected. But after about ten spoonfuls, fatigue and crankiness took over. Maddie began rubbing this apricot sauce into her both of her eyes. When I tried to dissuade her from this fruity path to blindness – she lost it. She went from the happy baby to the pea soup spitting Linda Blair in about five seconds.
So now we’re on the rocky path to an early, but angry bedtime. The rest of the feeding was a disaster. There was crying, pouting, spitting and using the remainder of her food as a new wave hair-care product.
Step two was a quickie bath that actually didn’t go too badly.
Step three was bedtime and the commotion began anew. There were heavy protests despite the fact that her father’s complaint department had shut down 30 minutes earlier.
The worst part of course is dealing with the fact that your poor decision-making caused the problem in the first place. But as usual, all you can do is learn from your mistakes before your daughter begins issuing a series of pink slips, reprimands and demerits.
Uncovering Baby’s Nighttime Spinning Secrets
So how is it that a baby who can’t crawl and has her legs secured is ripping around the crib in circles at night? It’s no secret that Maddie’s parents are baffled by this cosmic mystery.
What seemed like a normal Saturday morning this weekend turned upside down when Maddie’s parents arrived at the baby’s crib. That’s because they discovered that Maddie was upside down. Well sort of. Somehow during the night, Maddie had spun around a full 180 degrees.
There she was smiling and gurgling in her crib, despite the fact that it appeared as if someone had crept in during the middle of the night, picked Maddie up and turned her around.
The next night, we could actually hear Maddie on the move. I took a careful look into the crib and saw that she had gently wedged herself across the width of the crib. Her headband was butted up against the side of the crib, which was making a scratching noise. I picked her up and moved back to the bottom the mattress.
However, the next morning, the baby had accomplished her 180-degree spin maneuver for the second night in a row. What makes this even more impressive is the fact that she is doing this inside her sleep sack. So my little human whirlybird is accomplishing these feats of strength without the use of her legs.
So what’s deal? Is she just trying things out? Attempting an escape? Moving your entire torso around the crib while your legs are stuck in a full-body sleeping bag seems like a great deal of work.
These nocturnal exercise routines don’t seem to be impacting her sleep. She’s been in a great mood and besides the obvious confusion that she is causing for her parents, there doesn’t appear to be any ill effects.
We have some concerns about the wedging issue, but we fully expect her to complain if she runs into a problem. She is a very vocal young lady who is always ready to voice concerns at the drop of a hat.
Baby Grapples With Sore Gums
After a vaccination-fueled weekend of interrupted sleep, it’s been our pleasure to welcome in Maddie’s sore gums. That’s right, out with the shots and in with the teeth.
Maddie’s gums are giving her the dickens and she is letting everybody know about it. This morning’s early morning nap was almost over before it began, lasting only 30 minutes. This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day.
Maddie was out of sorts and only could only be soothed in short stints. Even one of our short walks (usually a Maddie favorite) only seemed to make matters worse.
The baby has started drooling like a rabid wolf now and is looking for relief in all the wrong places. She wants to chew anything and everything, but nothing we have tried seems to provide any relief.
From what I understand, we had better get settled in because the teething process is only going to get more difficult. The telltale sign that things were really changing was at dinnertime.
In recent weeks, the solid food dinner has really become a fan favorite. This is the meal Maddie really looks forward to. So after the baby endured such a difficult day, I made it a point to pick out some sweet potatoes, one of Maddie’s favorites.
I got her all prepped and spooned out some of that orange goodness only to be stopped at the gate. I couldn’t even get her to execute her favorite trick – the spoon grab! Maddie just wasn’t interested. I tried all the food tricks, the ones that help her to eat the non-favorites, but her heart just wasn’t into it.
We have all been blessed because Maddie feels so good and happy so often. But these gum issues have left her in a rather contemplative state. She realizes something is different and uncomfortable, but is still trying to piece together the origin of the problem.
After dinner, Maddie was far from enthusiastic with prospect of being put to bed. Even though several attempts ended badly, we are hopeful that the baby is able to work out some of these issues and get some much needed rest.
If anyone has any great advice or guidance for helping Maddie get through these tough times, we are all ears!
Stay Home PaPa 