To Nap or not to Nap… that is the Question
I think I am slowly losing my mind. You see, originally, we had the boys napping in their swings. We’d swaddle them, plunk them in there and they’d sleep for 3-4 hours at a time. Sweet. But a few weeks ago, I decided they need to start napping in their cribs and learn how to sleep on their own. As I type this, they are in their swings, so perhaps that gives you an indication of how it’s going…
I have been following The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer which I really like. I had also read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and the Ferber book (I can’t recall the name), and I like the Baby Whisperer best. It’s pretty basic — you keep the child(ren) on an “EASY” schedule, which stands for Eat, Activity, Sleep, You time. The basic premise is that by always having an activity between eating and sleeping, they stop associating eating with sleeping and can break the habit of nursing to sleep. It also promotes the idea of a routine (not a schedule, per se) so that the baby can predict what’s next and more readily accept sleep.
We’ve gotten to the point where I can put them down in their beds and they drift off with little to no fuss. They usually just roll over and doze off.
The problem? They wake up after 1/2 hour.
As you can imagine, working from home, there’s not much of anything I can get done in 1/2 hour. I’ve tried running up at the first peep and trying to soothe them back to sleep, I’ve tried taking them out and starting the routine over (which ends up in me nursing them 10+ times a day and putting them down for 6 naps a day), I’ve tried letting them figure out how to soothe themselves back to sleep (which results in them wailing until I rescue them) and I’ve even tried the “wake to sleep” approach where you gently rouse them just before they normal wake on their own, and then they go back to sleep, starting a new sleep cycle and (supposedly) sleeping longer.
Nothing works. Nothing.
I am overtired, stressed out and falling severely behind with my work. I don’t know what to do with them. As I said, they are back in their swings right now — which I know is bad as it’s just setting me back further — because it’s the only thing I can do to keep from screaming sometimes.
It’s even worse on the days Calista is home, as she will keep coming into their room and talking as I am trying got soothe them, or dances around in front of them and says “Hello! Did you wake up?” when they should be trying to go back to sleep.
Now is the first time I’ve really felt I need help. I need another person to help me get these boys sleeping properly because I can’t calm them both at once — I just end up running back and forth between the cribs trying to keep them both calm, but they both end up screaming and I end up exhausted. And then, like now, I give up and stick them in their swings.
I need sleep. Actually, what I need is to clone myself so one of me can sleep while the other does my work.
