Dadddy Nap v Baby
On Baby's seventeen week birthday, baby embraced the sleep regression and decided to wake up early from her morning nap. A lot early. Like ninety minutes early. After keeping mommy up all night at ninety minute intervals. This morning nap typically being the gold standard nap (the only one we can rely on Miss Chaya taking in a given day), it was additionally distressing that mommy walked through storm and wind for an hour to get roughly twenty minutes out of our bright-eyed baby.
Braveheart that he is (or at least far enough away from the daily trenches to earn some overconfidence) Daddy oh so confidently offered to give mommy a break and hopefully get a newly nap-resistant baby a much needed nap. He was riding high on some breakthroughs in the bedtime ritual (not so much getting her closer to sleep, but further from mauve-in-the-mien screaming at least), and full of hope. Chaya beat that down with her patented four month old howl and thrash.
Mommy watched from the shadows (since seeing mommy can make a disconsolate baby very demanding of mom-tention and possibly comfort nursing) while daddy patiently cycled through every possible plan and position. Nothing stuck. Daddy kept trying. After an hour, brave Hector of the nap world finally gave in to mommy's suggestion that Gramma Pam would be over to babysit soon and we could just ask her to drive the baby around in the car for a slapdash nap at that point. Then mommy offered to nurse the baby.
Baby may or may not have been hungry. Baby is a major comfort eater, but the boob did provide a significant soporific effect, allowing baby to zonk on top of mommy for forty five minutes. Daddy, sitting next to Chaya also passed out.
Mommy spent the next forty five minutes daring not to breathe wrong with both arms pinned under a heavy headed baby. She managed to maneuver her phone under a hand to sort of see facebook and cringed a bit whenever daddy snored and startled in his sleep.
Score
Chaya: 40 zzzzz + a carseat snooze
Daddy:40 zzzz
Mommy: "could somebody PLEASE scratch my nose?"
Wandering Naptime
The next day, mommy wrested a full nap out of the baby by sneaking into the office and walking on the treadmill. She got home just in time to leave again for a meet up with some other moms. Theoretically there were going to be dads too. That was kind of the point of meeting up at Wander Brewery. But one by one various participants claimed "long nap" until it was just two other moms with non-napping babies. Chaya, typically resistant to the one pm nap, fell asleep in the carseat on the way. Mommy almost demanded that daddy keep driving, but felt responsible for the whole event (which she'd organized) in the first place. In the hopes of keeping the unsolicited nap intact, Daddy brought the carseat in. Baby woke up instantly, but was so adaze at the changed scenery that she remained fairly mellow and quiet for a spell. When she started to get a little fussy, mommy put her in the boba. Baby passed out almost immediately and mommy spent the rest of the meet up standing gingerly to keep baby's myoclonic leg jerks from propelling her off mommy's folded legs into mommy's face. Baby woke up after forty minutes, just as the other moms were rushing their babies home for naptime.
Score
Mommy and Daddy: Half a porter between them and some authentic BBQ
Baby: Zzzish
Other Moms: Plus ten for making it home for naptime
...
Two days passed and mommy got a respite. It required four hours of walking with a baby on her chest, but baby napped and consequently she slept better at night. Baby got some three and a half hour snoozes. Mommy could almost even focus her eyes by Tuesday
and then...
Immunonapatation
Mommy oh so stupidly scheduled Chaya's four month pediatric visit over what is typically the beginning of Chaya's typically reliable (but not always) morning nap. And of course now that Chaya has a popular and well liked doctor (who is, incidentally, an awesome pediatrician and we are so glad we switched), there was a loooooooong wait. A blowing through the entire nap kind of wait.
Baby fell asleep in the carseat. Baby fell asleep in the waiting room. Baby was stirred for her weigh in and measurement. Long little beast was 25 inches, She was 13 pounds 5 ounces, which jettisons her into the 30th percentile and/or indicates she had not taken her usual massive morning poop. She did, however, take a massive morning piss all over the doctor's table. This is becoming a theme. It was more contained than last time, as mommy stemmed the flow with a number 1 diaper, a size that Chaya has mostly grown and blown out of.
Chaya then fell asleep on mommy, which never ever happens (except after nursing when mommy really needs to pee), during the doctor's visit. Only to be woken for another massive-leg-stabbing. We assume this is why she pissed on the table early. My baby, the ant-vaxxer. The look of betrayal was even more vivid as she grows into her four month expressiveness. Baby was calmed with some post-shot nursing, again establishing the food and comfort association that will plague her adult life. But desperate times...
She passed out again in the carseat. Then a little bit in mommy's boba before WAKING UP ANGRY as all get out. Tylenol and booby juice were delivered and she slept for the two hours that should have been her morning nap. Mommy walked around some more outside in the later afternoon. An hour walk got another twenty minutes of baby sleep. Baby was up repeatedly that evening, after being fairly gentle on daddy in the evening.
Takeaways from the visit included the fact that baby (1) is really healthy and bright, pummelling past all the anticipated milestones and then some, and (2) sleeps WAY too little for her age, which is likely causing her to be grumpy and contributing to her inability to sleep much at night. Also walking naps aren't sustainable long term. No, really?
Per our prior discussions and advice from the doctor, we are getting her used to the nap and bedtime routines, even if they don't lead to sleep. Mommy has cleaned out Chaya's crib to let her start hanging out in there. We're still leery about any kind of sleep training, but figure at about six months, we'll cross that bridge in the crib itself since mommy's back already strains to get baby out of the bassinet at this point. Mommy's planning to start putting Chaya down for her symbolic "naps" (the ones that don't stick but hopefully will set up a routine over time) in the crib. She wants to get a white noise machine and a chair in there. So far, baby likes the crib. It does not have soporific effects however.
Score
Dr. Eeley - Several hundred points
Dr. Eeley's Exam Room - Minus ten for pee
Chaya - Revenge points in the thousands
Mommy - sleep deprivation related hallucinations
Daddy - a nice dresser for his downstairs bachelor pad. He reminds mommy that she was the one who encouraged this arrangement, but she still thinks that with his narcoleptic tendencies, it wouldn't even be safe for him to be commuting like he is while half as sleep deprived as mommy. Plus, Mommy at least gets some sleep this way. Some. Hardly any. But some.
Testy Unknown
Chaya was a raging tempest on the second night after her shots. Daddy's great bedtime routine hit some snags, at least mommy can surmise from coming in to find him holding an inconsolobaby. Then again, while mommy actually had wrested two two hour naps from the baby, baby also fell asleep in the carseat on the drive home. Mommy would ordinarily have just kept driving, but daddy had come home early at mommy's oversensitivity to winter weather advisories, so she thought it would be kind of wrong to spend his whole little window of daddy-husband time driving around desperately, whilst possibly running straight into bedtime.
Mommy held her breath and brought out the gentle song that always (so far, knock on wood) seems to work with baby. Baby did calm down. She got noddy instead of naughty. And she did one last feed because mommy is still convinced that otherwise baby will be up even earlier). Baby started fussing after an hour, but didn't quite wake up for two. Then she stirred after ninety minutes. Then after an hour and fifteen. And the time whittled down from there. Poor baby was really uncomfortable and miserable. Poor mommy was crying right along with her.
Baby could only be soothed by nursing, which eventually led to soaking through her overnight diaper, just as mommy was coming down to change baby.
Baby fussed a bit in the morning. She is not feeling well. Mellowed well enough in our "nap routine" in which mommy nurses and sings and puts baby down in the bassinet. She did not, however, get the slightest bit tired. As typical, she actually got a second wind at about fifteen minutes and then fussed from there. Mommy went in to work. Baby fussed a bit after playing a bit and fell asleep in the boba... for now...
... for now...
..with random eruptions of crying before falling back into a precarious slumper..
Mommy keeps walking despite her faintness and one-handedly does an online crossword
Score
Chaya: Slight fever and a big ZZZ
Pampers Overnight Diaper: Zero
Mommy's pjs: minus ten for pee
Mommy: Why are the walls talking to me and how did I get here??
Nap Wars: WWWtf?
After the vaccinating torment of being stabbed in the leg, Chaya was in no mood to suffer fools, but boy did they suffer anyways!
We can't say why, but torment was in store for the denizens of Chaylandia. After a mere twenty minutes, Chaya debouched from her post-shot nod with a shriek and shudder. And a minor howl. Immunization pain no doubt. Hence Tylenol and a good nursing session.
This worked alright for one nap but the night beyond was long. Endlessly fraught with whimpers and sobs... Only some of which were mommy's. Rising in another howl, a febrile femme fatally-adorbs got a new dose of Tylenol. And another when she raged free from her boba bonds the next nap.
This was when mommy recalled an early D-saster from baby's early days and grew suspicious of the treacly tonic. Did baby seem manic? Was that jungle rumble in Chaya's tummy upset from rotavirus vaccine or the supposed palliative potion? High fructose fun, glycerin, food coloring... No nectar of baby gods, that.
We don't know why it raged, but a windy belly boded ill for all. The tears pierced eardrums that evening. Daddy remained in Mukilteo at an office event. Mommy found the bathtub faucet and bathroom fan to be steady allies in her final front again the freaking. Eventually baby fell again. Again the rousing was rapid, rabid and frequent, with farts worthy of a frat house homily. And in between, mommy had insomnia.
And we thought perhaps... perhaps that it was clearing.
It was not. After a misleadingly (semi) successful couple of naps during the day (one walk with mommy and one ride around the town in a car with Gramma Pam), Chaya had garnered her energies for a Chay-bomb of an evening.
Up after ninety minutes. Up after an hour. Up up up up up higher and angrier than a dope fiend at a Teletubbies taping. Eventually baby just decided she was awake around 4:45. There was a fifty minute snooze at 5. But mommy and baby were up again at 6:15.
Mommy sidled towards her snapping point. She changed baby's diaper, dressed the baby, downed some coffee and woke daddy. After a fussy-baby breakfast, mommy announced she was returning to bed for an hour. Mommy slept and baby... slept. The little bugger passed out on daddy without further complaint until a massive baby poop roused her. Just in time for mommy to come downstairs and resume parenting.
On the bright side: Baby got a nice long nap a bit later when mommy took a two hour walk. On the in between side: baby had a nice afternoon with daddy that involved repeatedly falling asleep and then being roused during a consumerist odyssey. This is not hte most restful of experiences, incidentally. Baby was a holy terror that evening.
Over the clamor of a howling baby, Mommy resumed the conversation about sleep training. The sooner the better was her new, less nuanced position.
While mommy believed that co-sleeping and so on was somehow philosophically better than sleep training, she also believed that a mother who does not hiss nocturnal imprecations at baby and father in increasingly dire tones (and who is perhaps not hallucinating while being alone left with the baby) was more important. Daddy was kind of "whatever" but accepted that maybe a happier baby and mother might relate to his being invited back into the upstairs bedroom. Why he would think this a positive, mommy can't say.
But... just to confuse the heck out of everything, baby decided to more or less sleep ok that night. Not beautifully. Not horribly. Just acceptably. Mommy didn't die. Mommy knew it was a brief detente and the next night brought mayhem...
But did it?
No, it brought real genuine sleep. A fussy baby (who has discovered new decibels and octaves with which to voice her frustration at NOT HAVING A TOY IN HER MOUTH BEING CHEWED ON PROPERLY) on either end, but massive pineapple-sweet chunks of sleep in the middle. Mommy has a new theory: the worse baby is around bedtime, the more daddy suffers, the better baby sleeps. She will adjust expectations accordingly.
And take some time to adjust to the moderate amount of sleep inertia that has exploded in her addled pate this morning. There were dreams. And moments of pure unadulterated unconsciousness. It's left her a bit askew!
Score
Chaya: Plus twenty for nearly breaking mommy.
Pampers Overnight Diaper: 14 hours of wow!
Mommy:Sleep drunk plus one for survival
Daddy: Has no idea what he's about to get into here...
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