It's been kind of a hard week. While my cold's mostly gone, I've been having a week of insomnia. Grrrr. I've been super exhausted between that and pregnancy tiredness.Dean's had his own nap issues that haven't helped me out at all. It's just what I feared. I've been feeding him lunch around 11 and putting him down for his nap around 11:30. He's gone to sleep fairly well and hasn't really fought it, but he never sleeps past 1. So he's only getting 1-1 1/2 hours of nap when he had been used to about 3 hours of naps. He's been pretty well behaved in the morning (good thing since I'm half napping almost all morning because of my exhaustion), but the late afternoons during piano have been the worst ever.
He's had major melt downs every day this week during piano lessons. Matt has had to work late to make up for lost hours because of our dentist appointments, so he hasn't been here during the majority of lessons. So when Dean starts melting down and nothing I do helps, I just put him in his crib with toys, shut the door and go back to teaching. He pretty much cries his lungs out until Matt gets home and rescues him the last 15-30 min. of lessons. Good thing tomorrow's Friday and I have no students.
I guess I'm posting this because I'm too tired to think of something more interesting.
7 comments:
Hang in there, things WILL get better! My kids had shorter naps the first little bit after the switch, but eventually they started taking long naps and getting all the sleep that they needed. Hopefully it will be the same with Dean. I'm sure he is just trying to get used to the new schedule and is just as frustrated. He will figure it out :) Love you girl!
i am so sorry about the insomnia. i got it bad during my pregnancy with kendall and then had it to some degree during all of my other pegnancies, the worst during my last one. one thing that helped me was to have a half an isagenix shake right before bed and to try not to go to bed after 10:30. but good luck with that one....
about the nap, if he is just taking one nap, it might help to push it back a little. I think that the closer you can get it to 12:30-1:00ish, the more likely it is to align with a naturally sleepy time of the day (according to dr. weissbluth). good luck though. rough patches are hard during pregnancy especially.
We've been having a similar issue with my little guy, only now at 2 1/2 he's decided he doesn't need a nap. There's nothing I can do to force him to sleep (I've tried a lot of things), so I at least have him get some "quiet time" in his room for an hour for all of our sanity. But he's usually pretty worn out by dinner time and hard to deal with. Hopefully Dean will adjust soon--it seems like my kids at that age would go through cycles of having longer naps and then shorter ones.
I was also going to suggest that you might want to think about having someone come watch him while you do your lessons. I have no idea what your finances are, etc., but I've found that when I worked or did school part-time I could usually find someone to watch my kids cheaply for a few hours a week (or sometimes I'd just exchange babysitting with them). Right now my husband and I generally trade off childcare between his work and my school, but my son does to go to a friend's house to "play" for a few hours each week. The freedom in both our schedules is so much nicer by just that few hours. It's hard at that age when they only want mom and dad and everyone has different levels of comfort with how much time kids get away from mom, but it might help if you could even find one of the YW to come over and play with him in another room for a few hours while you do lessons.
It takes a while for kids to adjust to a new sleep schedule, but you know, I can 95% guarantee that eventually your little melt-down man will wear himself out and sleep longer. It might not happen for every nap, but he'll eventually occasionally throw in a 3-hour nap along with those 1 hour naps. Part of this is just toddlerhood -- some days are markedly worse than others. But not all days are all bad and sleep deprived. C&A has a good idea...don't put him down too early...keep him up a little longer and wear him out and he just might sleep a little longer.
The reason I hesitated putting him down at 12:30 was because we used to do that on Sundays because of our church schedule. He oftentimes only slept 45 min-1 hour and struggled going down because he was over tired. Maybe since he's a few weeks older it would be better.
As for getting someone to watch him, it just seems like the income out would cancel out the income in and wouldn't be worth it. I could get a kid to come to my home, but the likelihood of that working out is not good. He hates it when Matt takes him during lessons let alone a stranger. Plus, I often have more than one student here at a time and they try and play with him and it just seems to make it worse most days.
oh you poor girl! sorry about insomnia I have it alot now its crazy!But When I was prego with Hailey I was super tired the first 5 months and all I wanted to do was sleep so I know how you feel! I hope it gets better for you!
I would try to push back his nap every day by about 10 or 15 minutes. He will adjust. It will get better and if it doesn't just ask mom, you gave up your naps at 9 months (or something crazy like that!)
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