Continued from the author’s previous post, “The Uprising.”
After a couple of weeks of fear and couch imprisonment, I decided it was time to take back some control. I checked the message boards online and pored over the baby books on my shelf. Why did this whole nap thing seem so easy to some people? Do I have a “problematic sleeper”? I asked myself many questions and did a lot of over-analyzing.
Finally, I bit the bullet and decided, once again, to return to the same nap routine. This time, however, I was prepared for resistance. I knew going in that confidence was the key. Be this as it may, I still experienced full-body sweats and had to utilize my SWAT team moves to get in and out of Dylan’s room. At first, of course, Dylan objected to all of this. He would yell and scream when I put him into his crib and closed the door. The difference this time — my reaction was different. It took a number of days, but soon enough my confidence levels slowly returned. I knew I had to be strong and have faith that eventually this would all work out. Every day the amount of time he spent crying during this process dwindled and after about a week, I was putting him down and he was going right to sleep (gasp!). We slipped so smoothly back into our routine; it was strange to think that we had ever left it.
There are still days when Dylan desperately tries to fight nap time, but I am prepared for this now. I have even gotten to the point where I can put him into his crib without nursing him first (big step) and he will actually fall asleep!
There are several things that I have learned in this process (so far): be open to change and be comfortable with it, always do things with confidence (babies can tell if you are feeling anxious, much like bears), try to stick with a schedule as much as you can – even if it’s a loose one, being somewhat consistent is key. I also had to learn to resist the urge to run into his room as soon as he woke up. Letting him play in the crib makes it feel like a safe place and this makes him more comfortable there. Taking the stress out of the equation makes all the difference (for both of us).
The moral of this story is: expect the unexpected. There will never be one strict schedule forever. After these nap wars, I learned that I needed to allow for change in order to keep a sense of order in my life. Dylan changing is a constant, which means that I have to continue to change, too.
