^Sometimes having a baby means bringing that baby into the bathroom with you so you can take a shower. But hey, as long as the baby is happy (and you somehow manage to get clean at some point in the day) it’s a win, right?!
I have only been a mother for roughly nine months, but in that short time I like to think that I have learned a few things. One of those things is that as soon as things are running smoothly, there will be a bump in the road to test your patience and your strength and make you wonder, ‘am I doing this right?’
Georgie has been on a schedule for quite awhile. Babies thrive on a schedule (as does this mama) so it has worked really well for us all. For awhile her schedule was sleeping every 90 minutes, which meant four naps a day that were one hour each. Then at 4.5 months Georgie went down to three naps a day (morning, afternoon and then a late afternoon cat nap) and at around 7 months she dropped her third nap and we started a schedule of morning nap at 9am and afternoon nap at 1pm. She has always loved sleeping and her naps are chunky and solid and she wakes up happy and it gives me a chance to be productive and it’s a delight.
It was all going so, so smoothly for such a long time, and then starting this week, when I put Georgie down for her morning nap, she cries and screams and sits straight up in her crib until I go in and pick her up. Then we go about our day like the nap attempt never even happened!
I called our pediatrician and I read my sleep books, websites and Facebook forums, all of which have told me that this is a developmental phase, and she will outgrow it soon. Georgie is doing so much and learning so much – she watches our mouths intently when we talk, she waves hello and goodbye (adorable), she crawls all over the place and gets into everything, she pushes up and stands (!!) on a big box or small ottoman, and she is just generally soaking up so much of this exciting world that sleep doesn’t sound so fun. She is napping during the day, but it’s such an erratic schedule. It’s admittedly hard for me because we were in such a good groove, but I’m trying to learn to be more patient and I’m hoping to be as understanding of our sweet, growing girl as I can. I always try to see things through her eyes so I can comfort her appropriately – it must be overwhelming for her to be learning so much so quickly, so I try my best to always make her feel safe and ok and loved.
Of course when something like this happens, I naturally wonder what I’m doing wrong and how I can fix it, but sometimes these things just need to run their course. It’s not always easy for me to accept change, and to understand that I can’t put a timeline to everything (i.e. when exactly will her naps be back to normal??!) but I am doing my best to be the most understanding, nurturing and compassionate mother I can be. At the end of the day, if my girl is happy, then so am I.
^Georgie loves the swings, and these days she will tilt her head right back and stare straight up at the sky and the treetops and the changing leaves and the building cranes and just stay that way for a solid 10 or 15 minutes. What a wonderful, goofy girl.
**11/4 update: The past two days when Georgie’s morning naps have been a no-go, I’ve been putting her down at 9:30am. She has been waking up a little later in the morning, so with that plus daylight savings I thought a slightly later nap time would be the perfect solution. Wrong! Today I put her down just before 9am, and there wasn’t a peep. Sometimes solving the parenting puzzle makes you feel like a superhero, at least for a day. Yay 🙂
