OK, it's been one of those nights. And for no reason that's obvious to me. Mari had an average amount of total naptime, though it's true that the first was long and the next two short. She had an average amount of stimulation for the day. It took her longer than usual to fall asleep, but the first couple of hours of sleep were fine. Since then, she's been waking up what seems like every 10 minutes.
Maybe what I need is more data. I know the NCSS cautions against logging too often, because patience is necessary. But part of me wonders if there's an optimal amount of naptime, a perfect bedtime, that I'm not consistently hitting on. So starting tomorrow I'll try to keep better track of the amount of naptime, the bedtime and the number of night wakings. Maybe there's another variable, but I'll start with those.
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Is there a time at which she always seems sleepy or fussy in the evening? Could be as early as 5:30 p.m. If you can catch that moment where she's tired but not overtired, it might take less time to get her down.
ReplyDeleteThe problem we ultimately ran into with Caleb was that he could get himself to sleep just fine at bedtime (put down awake after bedtime routine), but he didn't do it in the middle of the night -- he'd wake many times and stay awake for no discernible reason.
Hmm, she often seems sleepy or fussy multiple times during the day, and I try to get to get her down for a nap right away if she is that way. Sometimes I'm still too late by the time I get her down, after a feed, a pee, etc., but I've been improving. But for some reason she seldom exhibits the same types of signs in the evening. If anything, she seems overly excited -- as if she's trying to fool us into thinking she's not tired. Maybe that's a sign of overtiredness in itself. When I first started this, I was trying to get Mari to fall asleep by 7:30, and she succeeded quite often, but then she was always up really early, which wasn't so good for me. Everything has shifted slightly later and now she goes to sleep around 8 (more like 8:30 tonight; my bad) and gets up around 7-7:30, which is easier for me than 6.
ReplyDeleteI think Mari is similar to Caleb -- I do put her down still awake, if barely (I'm trying to move that to putting her down more awake, but so far she's not having it) and she goes down OK. But then she keeps waking up and not falling back asleep.
She might be overtired in the evenings -- Caleb turns into a total basket case when he's tired, pulling things off the counters, throwing his toys, making shrieky noises, anything he knows will get my attention. It seems like he has more energy, and sometimes I'm tempted to run around with him or chase him around the house to 'get it out' so he can sleep, but actually he's tired and he needs me to corral him because he's incapable of doing it himself. So she might be doing that as well. Overtired is actually harder to get to sleep (as I'm sure you know) than the 'right' amount of tired. Whatever that is. :)
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