My New Game Plan

I was laying in bed last night thinking how excited I was that baby story time was starting back up (yay) and that I was going to see Jill and Jake tomorrow. I kept thinking of how happy I was that day [yesterday] and how I was even more excited to tell Jill how well LB has been sleeping lately (she's constantly my sounding board for our sleep problems! Thanks Jill!) I took a long hot bath because I deserved it - I had done FIVE loads of laundry all washed, dried and put away, cleaned out the freezer etc etc. I even stayed up a little later to read my book since I have not had the time or energy to read. And what happens 30 minutes after I turned the lights off at 11pm? Yep, you guessed, she woke up crying.

*sigh*

But, I had a great day and I was pretty well rested from the 2 good nights of sleep in a row I had had so I hopped up and rocked her back to sleep then climbed back into bed. Until...she woke up an hour or so later. And again. And again. And every time I thought it would be the last, but wasn't, drained me of my energy and spirit. She had napped so well! We were doing so good! What brought this on? I even abstained from nursing until finally I was in too much pain and had to nurse her back to sleep. I should state that luckily LB is *knock on wood, please don't let me jinx this* pretty easy to get back to sleep most of the time a little rocking, maybe a paci, maybe some milk and she's out again.

Anyway, So when I told Jill this she agreed with what I already knew to be true, Babies nap better when they've had a good nights sleep and sleep better at night when they nap good. Ugh. Such an endless cycle. So hard to get into and so easy to get out of!

So, my new game plan is to try much harder to squeeze in two decent naps a day, NO MATTER WHAT. I believe I've said this before. But now that I have a couple of different ways to get her to sleep (nurse, paci, rocking, shhhing) I think I can handle it. Really, I only had nursing to rely on before so now the more options give me more hope and more patience which is even more important!

Currently LB is on nap #2 even though it took me 20+ minutes to get her good and asleep enough to lay down in the crib I am hoping, praying, knocking on wood and doing a *please* dance that this will help her sleep better tonight.

I'll be sure to let you know!