Friday, July 22, 2011

naptime

For most of the past year, naptime was my least favorite time of day. Of course it was always nice when Jamie was sleeping . . . time to relax or get things done that I couldn't with a wakeful baby. But actually getting him to nap was miserable. He has never been able to put himself to sleep for a nap, even though he can at bedtime, and he never took very long naps, usually only 30-45 minutes. For months, it took me just as much time to get him to sleep as he ended up sleeping. And when he needed several naps a day, I thought it was going to drive me batty.

But fortunately "this too shall pass" is 100% true. Jamie's napping improved greatly over the past few months, and he started taking closer to 1 1/2 hour naps most days. Recently, he went down to one nap, and it has dramatically improved our daily routine. Eight, nine, ten months ago, I never would have believed that Jamie would ever be capable of napping for 2-3 hours straight, but it is now almost a daily occurrence.

Jamie still can't put himself to sleep at naptime, though. I think now that he is down to one nap, I could pretty quickly train him to, but I find myself not wanting to, even though I would have done just about anything to get him to last year. We have a short nap routine after lunch - a short book, a song - and then I rock him to sleep. With one nap, he's tired enough by then that it takes about a minute (or sometimes less) for him to fall asleep. And then I get to rock my cuddly, sleepy boy for 10ish minutes before putting him down in his crib. When he has had a fussy day--unfortunately a common thing this week, molars are the worst--it is so nice to have that peaceful time with him so I can be reminded of how sweet he is and how lucky I am to have him. And right now, I have the time. I doubt I'll be able to do this even if I want to with any future children. It is still hard to believe it, but putting Jamie down for his nap has become just about my favorite time of day.

"Naughty and noisy as they might be by day, [asleep] they look like cherubs; all children do." 
-Madeleine L'Engle

1 comment:

  1. I've always been a fan of naptime myself. Jk. Glad it's improving.

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