Category Archives: naps

C’s Naps

C napping collage

Over the past few weeks, C’s been having problems sleeping. My baby boy fell asleep in my arms a couple of times recently. Before that, he hadn’t fallen asleep in my arms in over a year.

I didn’t have my feet up, so my legs and feet swelled from the pregnancy. My arm fell asleep. But gosh was he perfect to look at.

His long eyelashes, his little belly going up and down with every breath. That soft, smooth baby skin. The sweet smell of his breath. Those little hands that are changing from baby hands to little boy hands. When did his legs get so long? How is he growing so quickly?

My heart beat faster thinking about how fast this time with him is going. Soon he’ll no longer be the baby in our family. My baby boy will become the big brother. He’ll keep growing bigger. My sweet, perfect baby boy.

High Needs Baby

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Ever since C’s colic started, I’ve been following The Fussy Baby Site‘s blog. Today, they posted a list of the Top Websites for Colic. I visited the Ask Dr. Sears website that was listed and stumbled upon information on high needs babies. I had an “aha” moment – FINALLY, C’s personality is explained.

I knew he was a strong-willed and determined baby, but I’ve been spending a lot of time scouring parenting books to figure out how to conform him to a schedule – especially for his naps. He refuses to nap more than 20 minutes at a time. Even getting him to do that is a struggle that typically involves screaming on his part. Now I understand that it’s not something that I’m doing wrong, and it’s not something that he’s likely to grow out of. It’s just his personality. And he’s not alone – there are many other high needs babies. Their parents also feel exasperated and at a loss for what to do, since their baby’s personality is unlike that of others they know. High needs babies even tend to make their feelings known in the womb by being extremely active. I feel validated!

According to Dr. Sears, whose forth child had this personality, there are 12 features of a high needs baby. C exhibits many of these features:

Intense. Whenever C wants something, he starts screaming. He goes from “0 to 60″ in the blink of an eye.
Draining. After an entire day of needing to actively entertain him and fighting to get him to nap, I am completely drained. It’s exhausting.
Demanding. He needs to be held a lot, entertained, switch positions often while feeding, etc. When he’s not getting what he wants, he screams.
Unsatisfied. He’s only content doing something for a short amount of time. I constantly need to switch things up for him, whether that’s moving him from gym to bouncer to floor to swing or parading toy after toy in front of him to keep him entertained.
Unpredictable. I’ve tracked C’s feeding and sleep schedule since he was born. There has NEVER been a pattern to it. I think we’ll always be an “on-demand” household, because that’s the only thing that seems to work for him.
Super sensitive. Whenever something is the least bit wrong in his world, he starts to cry. In one respect, this is good because he lets us know he needs something. When it happens frequently, it becomes a bit frustrating.
Can’t put baby down. Sometimes he just cries and screams no matter what we do unless he is held. If we sit down, he cries because he wants to be rocked or walked around with. He has a need to see everything that is happening around him, which I believe is another reason that he doesn’t want to nap.
Not a self-soother. Some children can soothe themselves with their thumbs, fists or a pacifier. Not C – his cries will continue to become louder and more frantic until you attend to his needs. It’s best to get to him quickly before it escalates.

It’s challenging to be a parent of a high needs baby, because your baby doesn’t accept common methods (i.e. crying it out or other sleep training). Because you see other babies who are easily calmed or content, you sometimes question your ability as a parent. I’m so thankful to The Fussy Baby Site for posting this information! C is not just a difficult child, and I am not doing something wrong as a parent. This is simply C’s personality and I need to learn how to conform to HIS needs. While it may be hard at times to raise a high needs child, if Hubster and I learn how to positively direct his passion and intensity, these traits will serve him well in life. I just need to remind myself that when I feel like I’m going insane!

*Special thanks to my parents; I, too, was a spirited high needs child. Their patience with me and encouragement of all of my energy has served me well. I hope that I will be able to do the same for C.*

The Battle of the Nap

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Two sides, equally strong-willed and determined, face off in an epic battle of sleep. A refusal to give into slumber is met with an equal dedication to enforce the rules of nap-dom. Screaming and a theatric conflict of wills ensue. There can only be one victor.

And it will be me.

Being Grateful for a Shower

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It is after 10:30pm and I just got done taking my shower for the day. Today was kind of crazy.

Between 8:10am and 8:25am, I woke up, made a pediatrician appointment for C, got myself ready and left for the doctor’s office for an 8:40 check-in time. (Thank you to my wonderful Hubster for getting C dressed, or I never would have made it out the door on time!) Naturally, after all that rushing we had to wait until 9:02 to get called in for the appointment. The good news is that C does not have an ear infection! His symptoms are just from his cold and other than that, he’s perfectly healthy. He’s also a svelt 12 pounds, 2 ounces now! ;)

C and I have been sick since we returned home from our vacation to visit family last Tuesday. It’s awful. C has a difficult time sleeping and wakes up a lot. He often screams and thrashes his body while we try to feed him, even though he’s hungry. It takes a while to feed him and he generally isn’t eating as much as usual. This screaming doesn’t help the splitting migraine that I’ve had since last Wednesday. I don’t feel like I’m getting any better, but I think it’s because I don’t get enough sleep. I’ve exiled myself to the couch since last Wednesday to avoid waking up C with my cough. Oh the perils of a 1-bedroom apartment. :-p Being on the couch, I wake up every time C needs to be fed at night, even if Hubster is doing the feeding. I also don’t have the advantage of the blackout curtain that we have in our bedroom, so the light wakes me up early in the morning.

Despite the good news that he received at the pediatrician’s office, C refused to nap for more than 30 minutes today unless he was lying in my arms. No naps for Mama. The screaming made my head want to explode. Then this afternoon, I felt like the air in our apartment was getting rather humid and warm. No joke – less than 2 minutes later, all the windows and glass in our apartment completely fogged over. Yep, the air conditioning went out. AGAIN. Only this time it was 96 degrees with a heat index of 112. It’s the kind of heat that suffocates you.

After notifying the appropriate staff and discovering this was a campus-wide issue (we currently reside on campus for Hubster’s live-in graduate assistantship), C and I returned to the apartment to discover that it was too sticky to be habitable. I called Hubster and the three of us headed to the mall to wait it out.

Two poopy diapers in two hours later (have I mentioned I hate changing diapers in public restrooms?!), we returned to mercifully find that the air conditioning had been restored. C was fed and went to bed rather easily. Hubster sweetly washed all of the bottles while I nursed my headache on the couch. Now I’m sharing this day with you fine people before I attempt to spend yet another night on the couch, while Hubster is simultaneously watching ESPN and playing XBox 360. Here’s to another day in the life…

“The No-Cry Sleep Solution”

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I just received this book, by Elizabeth Pantley, in the mail yesterday and cannot seem to read the pages fast enough. Between my weary, sleep-deprived eyes and a 5-week-old who won’t nap for more than 15 minutes unless he’s sleeping on one of us, I’m in desperate need of a solution.

We’re lucky in that C usually sleeps well at night. He has 3-5 hour stretches between feedings. It’s a different story during the day. I don’t understand why he hates napping!

Have you utilized the tips in this book? Were they helpful to you?

Little Mama Jama