Sleep When the Baby Sleeps

I’ve heard this advice frequently, and while I do not disagree with it, I’m having a heck of a time making it happen.  I have yet to take a nap while by myself with Jack.

There are various reasons for this.  One:  I haven’t had a lot of luck getting Jack to nap during the day except in the sling/wrap or with me holding him.  Seems like no matter how long I wait, to make sure he’s really asleep, when I try and put him down in the crib, co-sleeper or even the bed–he wakes up.  Yesterday was my first success at him briefly napping in the cosleeper–and I took a shower.

Two:  when he naps I often feel like doing one of the other million things I haven’t had time to do, like, I dunno, eat something, return phone calls, throw in some laundry, etc.  Part of me still feels like sleeping during the day is a waste, even if I desperately need it.  It’s true I can do a lot of those things with him in the sling, but having total movement comes in handy sometimes.

Three:  I am the queen of sleeping in, but I have never been a napper.  I didn’t nap when I was pregnant.  I just don’t like naps:  it takes me a long time to fall asleep and when I wake up I feel disoriented with a bad taste in my mouth.  And somehow it doesn’t feel like wasting the day when I sleep in late, but once I’m up, I’m up.

Having said all that, it is definitely a goal for me to get better at this and learn to love the nap.  I am hoping Jack will be getting on a somewhat more regular nap schedule sometime soon, which should help.

He’s napping in the Moby wrap as we speak.

Dirty Hippie

I seem to have become a dirty hippie, when it comes to parenting anyway.  The hippie part:  cloth diapers, co-sleeping, babywearing.  The dirty part:  I don’t get to shower so much these days.

I had vague ideas about diapers and sleeping and such before Jack was born, but it’s not til I had the kid in my hot little hands that I really started deciding how I felt about these things.  For example, I thought I would never have Jack sleep in our bed, not so much because I’m against it, but because I was afraid I’d squish him.

After spending many nights with hours awake trying to rock him back to sleep after nursing, I was finally exhausted enough just to haul him into bed with us, and voila!  He fell asleep… and so did I.  So now he spends part of the night in his cosleeper (which is attached to my side of the bed) and part of it in the bed.  His sleep seems a lot calmer when he’s in the bed with us.. much quieter and less thrashing around.

If you subscribe to the Dr. Sears method of parenting, it’s all good.  But a lot of people are wary of cosleeping because they say it doesn’t teach the baby independence–and that when you DO decide it’s time for them to move into their own room, good luck.  We haven’t decided how long we want Jack to sleep in our room, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it I guess.

Today was a major milestone–the first time I took a shower when I was alone in the house with Jack.  I’ve been having a hard time in the day getting him to nap unless I’m holding/wearing him.  Every time I think he’s finally asleep and ease him into the crib or cosleeper or bed, bam, he’s wide awake and crying.  But I kept trying this afternoon and eventually he fell asleep in the cosleeper and I rushed into the shower.  I even had time to wash my hair, woo hoo!