6 Months: Napping!!

I've caught myself saying, "I don't remember what we did with Jackson" several times this week, so I guess that means it's time to blog.

Once Micah went down from 3 - 3.5 hour feedings to 4 hour feedings he naturally fell into taking three naps. The first two naps are about two hours each and the last nap can be anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

HOWEVER, I was still having a difficult time getting him to sleep all the way through naps without waking up and crying (especially the third nap). I thought maybe he just needed to drop the third nap. OH NOOOO, then he was a BEAR between 6:30 and 7:30 at night and he'd crash HARD for bed. So, it's obvious he still needs that third nap right now, but I couldn't figure out why he wasn't napping well.

So I got out my trusty copy of "On Becoming Babywise Book Two" by Gary Ezzo, M.A. and Robert Bucknam, M.D. In the chapter the addresses questions about pretoddler sleep there's this question: "My baby is sleeping 13 hours at night. Is this a problem?"

My answer: NO! We're lucky our kids sleep through the night! Let them sleep!!!

The book's answer: YES! "The cause [of longer night sleeping] is usually (but not always) tied to poor or nonexistent daytime naps. In response your baby is sleeping longer at night because of fatigue realized during the day. ... The effect ... is the negative impact it has on a nursing mother's milk production."

BUMMER!

Micah was sleeping from about 7:45pm to 8:15am (not quite 13 hours, but almost) and I had only started letting him sleep past 7:30am recently and that's right around the same time the nap times became an issue.

SO, I get Micah up now between 7:15 and 7:30am for his first feeding and so far naps have improved. I have been swaddling him and putting him in the swing for his third nap the past couple of days just to get him into the habit of a third nap again, but I plan on transitioning him back to the crib shortly.

Another problem we seem to be having (and maybe it's tied up with the extended nighttime sleep) is having someone else put Micah down to sleep. Colin's been giving Micah a bottle at bedtime once a week (with the exception of when we travel) and this last week he took the bottle just fine BUT when Colin laid him down he SCREAMED! UGH! I was at Bible study so I couldn't come rescue Colin and eventually Micah did go to sleep, but I'm hoping things will get easier.

I try not to cuddle with Micah when I put him down for a nap or for bed so that others can put him down easily. I can't remember Jackson ever having a preference over who put him to bed. However, I definitely put Micah to bed more often because usually Colin puts Jackson to bed and I take Micah.

Anyway, I'm hoping that over time Micah will grow out of this stage and go to sleep without a peep. Here's to hopin'!

P.S. Stranger anxiety has started this month too. Ugh. It may be a bit of an uphill battle.