I'm not sure if that was an answered prayer or just the only response I could consider once I was quiet and the distractions ceased. Regardless, it's what I did. I went upstairs and nursed her to sleep. She slept for twenty-five minutes-- her typical nap length when she is overtired. I was disappointed, dismayed, discouraged and a wee hit distraught.
I kept her up until the next nap, which is 2-3 hours after the first nap for most babies, according to Dr Marc. I knew she absolutely had to sleep this time. My determination returned, out of sheer necessity for her to get the sleep she needed.
I had to use this window to go get my husband's birthday meal and dessert. There was no other time to do it. The poor man is so sacrificing and plays second fiddle so often that I couldn't postpone this trip. I knew my daughter needed to sleep and I knew I had to run this one errand.
Without even really thinking it through I told Jeff that he could let her cry until 1:22, one full hour, but to try to listen to when she fell asleep so I would know. I planned to be back within that hour. She had a dry diaper and a full belly.
Izzy and I headed out to the store. I tried to listen to some music in the car to distract me. We went to the restaurant and ordered Jeff's lunch and Lemon Meringue Pie. We played a bit while waiting. I wanted to call home and check in but then I remembered we had turned he ringer off on the phone so as to avoid waking Addie. I considered that maybe that was a good thing. If she was still crying there was nothing I could do from the other side of town. We hopped in the car and headed home. As we got closer, guilt set in. It was the kind of guilt that you feel when you break curfew. It approaches near your return home, and it's the sort of guilt that makes you feel like you really disappointed someone you love.
When we got home Jeff told me the good news. She whined a bit for only eight minutes! Woo hoo! I was thrilled. She was still asleep and continued to nap until after 2 pm, an hour and forty minutes-- the typical length of her "good" naps. I was delighted.
She went down for her third nap with zero protest. It was tricky determining when to put her down for bed and I brought her back down a couple times. Finally when I put her down she yelled once and went back to sleep. I noted that on the earlier attempts that she talked and played for a bit before protesting-- a confirmation that the morning's crying did not leave her scared of her bed-- this had been a concern of mine.
I'm not thrilled I had to leave her to cry. But I'm sort of glad that it happened. It's going to be impossible to get her down to nap before she's overtired every single day, four times a day. I'm aiming for perfect but I know there will be days like yesterday where I miss the signs, or we have to be somewhere during nap time or something wakes her early. I'm glad to know we will survive it.
I'll write some more posts about some of the details of this process soon. I did not follow Dr Marc's crying suggestions but the other material in the book was such a help. I want to write it out to share with other Mommas with tired babies. I thank God for this book that was part of God's loving answer to my desperate prayer.
Here's a picture of the notepad that I used this past week to take notes on every nap. This worked really well and helped a ton when I was considering when to attempt naps. I could look back and see how long she stayed awake between naps earlier in the week.
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