"How dare you disturb me during nap time!" part 1
Abbie is now in the midst of the journey to one nap per day. This is huge for me because it means I’m losing one of my two stretches during the day when I can do something that doesn’t involve applauding when I see a block pushed through the correct hole.
Abbie’s made a long journey just to arrive at this stage. As a newborn, she took as many naps as any other newborn, approximately 681,321,534 every day. She would tank up on a couple milliliters of milk, doze off as she inhaled, and then use that same breath to scream with an exhale that let us know she was awake and hungry. This cycle continued throughout the daytime hours, but thankfully eased somewhat overnight when she would sleep for longer stretches, sometimes as long as two entire breaths. Some parents are lucky enough to have a newborn sleep for hours at a time overnight; we were lucky enough to have a newborn we could enjoy at all hours of the night. Ellie and I slept in shifts a lot back then, much like a military battalion guarding against a terrifying force, which come to think of it is pretty much what we were doing. As she aged, she took fewer and longer naps, and eventually started napping erratically, sometimes napping four hours at a time, other times napping no more than 15 minutes. Then one day around age 10-weeks, Abbie was extraordinarily cranky, and by proxy so were we, because she had been awake for about six hours straight and refused to take a nap. Our neighbor took pity and introduced us to a complicated system involving scheduled cycles of feed-play-sleep. The theory behind this system is by putting the child on a schedule, she learns what to expect and when to expect it, eventually becoming the world’s happiest baby who will elicit much praise from mortal onlookers in awe at your parenting skills. After doing some research, I discovered this system’s mortal enemy is called Attachment Parenting, which involves keeping the child near you at all times so you can respond to her needs. The theory behind this system is a baby instinctually knows what she wants, and by fulfilling her needs as they arise the child comes to trust you and feel content, eventually becoming the world’s happiest baby who will elicit much praise from mortal onlookers in awe at your parenting skills. Both systems have sizeable followings who swear their system is the only one that works, and are passionately convinced that the opposing system is ruining America. No doubt these people believe that all the violence in Iraq could be avoided if only the insurgents’ parents had raised them using their system.
Attachment Parenting seemed pretty similar to what I was already doing with little success, so I switched to the scheduled system. Plus our pediatrician seemed to be pushing us to use more of a schedule. We asked him for advice to keep Abbie happy and us sane, and one of his suggestions was to put her on a feeding schedule. When he asked how many times a day she ate, I really didn’t have an answer since she just grazed all day long with a nibble here and nibble there, much like what I do at a wedding reception buffet, especially if they have little smokies and free soda pop. We started her on a schedule that repeated every two-and-a-half hours, and she took to it with relative ease, or possibly the transition was so traumatic for all of us that I blocked all painful memories. Either way, I remember her, and everything else around the house, being much more pleasant after the schedule. In the year or so since then, I’ve spent my time slowly cutting her naps back to four, and then three, and then, um, two. Now we’ve started the painful struggle to cut her down to one long nap per day. That is a story for tomorrow I believe, since I’ve hit my writing limit for today. Plus I need to spend some time distributing these Farsi pamphlets explaining the evils of Attachment Parenting.
Abbie’s made a long journey just to arrive at this stage. As a newborn, she took as many naps as any other newborn, approximately 681,321,534 every day. She would tank up on a couple milliliters of milk, doze off as she inhaled, and then use that same breath to scream with an exhale that let us know she was awake and hungry. This cycle continued throughout the daytime hours, but thankfully eased somewhat overnight when she would sleep for longer stretches, sometimes as long as two entire breaths. Some parents are lucky enough to have a newborn sleep for hours at a time overnight; we were lucky enough to have a newborn we could enjoy at all hours of the night. Ellie and I slept in shifts a lot back then, much like a military battalion guarding against a terrifying force, which come to think of it is pretty much what we were doing. As she aged, she took fewer and longer naps, and eventually started napping erratically, sometimes napping four hours at a time, other times napping no more than 15 minutes. Then one day around age 10-weeks, Abbie was extraordinarily cranky, and by proxy so were we, because she had been awake for about six hours straight and refused to take a nap. Our neighbor took pity and introduced us to a complicated system involving scheduled cycles of feed-play-sleep. The theory behind this system is by putting the child on a schedule, she learns what to expect and when to expect it, eventually becoming the world’s happiest baby who will elicit much praise from mortal onlookers in awe at your parenting skills. After doing some research, I discovered this system’s mortal enemy is called Attachment Parenting, which involves keeping the child near you at all times so you can respond to her needs. The theory behind this system is a baby instinctually knows what she wants, and by fulfilling her needs as they arise the child comes to trust you and feel content, eventually becoming the world’s happiest baby who will elicit much praise from mortal onlookers in awe at your parenting skills. Both systems have sizeable followings who swear their system is the only one that works, and are passionately convinced that the opposing system is ruining America. No doubt these people believe that all the violence in Iraq could be avoided if only the insurgents’ parents had raised them using their system.
Attachment Parenting seemed pretty similar to what I was already doing with little success, so I switched to the scheduled system. Plus our pediatrician seemed to be pushing us to use more of a schedule. We asked him for advice to keep Abbie happy and us sane, and one of his suggestions was to put her on a feeding schedule. When he asked how many times a day she ate, I really didn’t have an answer since she just grazed all day long with a nibble here and nibble there, much like what I do at a wedding reception buffet, especially if they have little smokies and free soda pop. We started her on a schedule that repeated every two-and-a-half hours, and she took to it with relative ease, or possibly the transition was so traumatic for all of us that I blocked all painful memories. Either way, I remember her, and everything else around the house, being much more pleasant after the schedule. In the year or so since then, I’ve spent my time slowly cutting her naps back to four, and then three, and then, um, two. Now we’ve started the painful struggle to cut her down to one long nap per day. That is a story for tomorrow I believe, since I’ve hit my writing limit for today. Plus I need to spend some time distributing these Farsi pamphlets explaining the evils of Attachment Parenting.
posted by Matt at
9:30 PM
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