Day 65: Trying to find the sweet spot between not tired and too tired

Sometimes my insights seem blinding in their obviousness... after I have them. But it has come to me that perhaps Mari has been having trouble falling and staying asleep because she's not really tired when I try to get her down for a nap.

I once again experimented with letting Mari set her own schedule today, to see what's changed. And clearly, some things have. Mari can happily stay awake longer than ever, and I've finally decided she's given up on her third nap for good -- it's been a couple of weeks since she's taken one and she hasn't even seemed close lately.

I didn't set out to let Mari set her own schedule when I woke up this morning, but when I was trying to get her down for her first nap at about 9:15 it became clear she was nowhere near the point of sleep. So I decided I'd let her stay up for another hour or until she started showing signs of fatigue, whichever came first. Well, the hour mark came first and she wasn't sleeping until 10:30. However, she napped without waking for nearly an hour and a half.

The afternoon worked less well. I decided to do it purely on sleepy signs. But Mari has never been very consistent or clear about showing signs of fatigue until she's already overtired, and that's what happened. The screechiness of overtiredness came on suddenly, without so much as a warning yawn. She didn't go down for her afternoon nap until close to 4 PM and she was up again 35 minutes later. I suspect short naps are likely to happen when she's either overtired or undertired, and I think we've been having plenty of both lately.

So the conclusion I'm coming to is that Mari's schedule needs to change to reflect her only having two naps a day and greater comfort with being up three to four hours at a stretch. But she clearly does need to have a schedule, because she's not old enough to know what's best for her.

Another thing I've been thinking about is moving Mari's bedtime slightly later, in hopes of getting her to sleep a little later in the morning -- she's been waking up before 7:00 most of the time, and 7:00 is just barely tolerate for me. Last night she went to bed early (7 PM) because she hadn't napped well, then she was up and wanted to play at 5:30 AM this morning, though I eventually managed to get her back down for awhile before she woke up for good at 6:50.

Perhaps a new (ideal) schedule might look like this (not including feedings), with half an hour of flexibility on either side for naps:

7:00 - Up and play
9:30 - Naptime routine
10:00-11:30 - Nap
2:30 - Naptime routine
3:00-4:30 - Nap
7:00 - Bedtime routine including bath
8:00 - Asleep

If she really follows this, she should be getting about 14 hours total sleep a day, about ideal for a baby her age, and she would never be up more than three and a half hours at a stretch. Anyway, I'll give this a try for the next few days and re-evaluate.

Day 53: Daylight Savings Whine

Daylight savings time started today, which meant Mari woke up an hour later than usual, which would be great for her to keep up. But she napped so late both in the morning and afternoon, by the time she was tired again, it was too late to let her have a third nap, so I ended up putting her to bed a little earlier than I would have normally, which means it would have been VERY early before the time change. So I may have screwed myself out of a chance to have a baby who sleeps until 8 AM. We'll see what happens.

Mari has actually been napping only twice more and more, though she had three naps yesterday, when she was more or less back on what I used to think of as her normal schedule. I'd really like to have her on a predictable schedule, but I think I'll be loose with it for a few more days to see what happens with the time change.

Day 29: Natural schedule changing?

Mari had a good but unusual day for naps today. Instead of three shorter naps, she had two two-hour naps. She seemed well-rested and was in a good mood most of the day.

I wish I could say it was because of something I did differently, but it wasn't. She's just unpredictable. However, today made me think maybe Mari's changing her natural schedule, such as it is. She suddenly also seems to want to stay up longer. Only a short time ago she was always tired after two hours of being up, sometimes sooner. Lately trying to get her down after two hours has been a struggle, and today she was up for a couple of three-hour stretches. So maybe part of the problem with her naps has been that I've been trying to make her sleep when she wasn't tired yet.

Not everything today went exactly as I would like. She woke up briefly in the middle of the first and had to be nursed back to sleep. Also, she slept in our bed for both naps, though for the second, amazingly, I was able to leave her quickly and she still kept sleeping.

Regardless, maybe I'll lay off a bit on trying to schedule her for the next week or so. Instead, I'll feed her, potty her and read her a story in advance of when she usually gets tired and use that as a signal to begin quieter play. Then I'll pay close attention to her tired cues and when I see them, I'll get her down right away in the best possible environment for sleep. Maybe if I do all that, she'll show me some sort of pattern.

As I understand things, babies can be in transition between three naps and two for quite awhile, so it's likely she'll still need three naps most of the time, which will make the days' schedules different. But a little more observation will hopefully give me a better idea of if I do need to shift her schedule.