In my continuing quest to sleep for longer than two hour stretches, I decided to take a friend's advice and put the Muffin Man on a nap schedule. Keep in mind that it took us until last week to figure out that it's better to have a set bedtime around 7:30PM, rather than letting our child hang out in the living room watching The Americans with us until after 10pm, so obviously we are a little behind the ball when it comes to these things. Anyway, the theory behind the nap schedule is that the more sleep a baby gets during the day, the better he will sleep at night. So far, very appealing. You're never supposed to let your child be awake for longer than two hours before putting him down, awake, for a nap. Sounds doable, right? Right. Unless you have my child who thinks that sleeping is a torture method designed to rob him of being part of all the excitement happening in the world. Basically, my daily routine now involves putting Noah down for a nap, him screaming at the top of his lungs, me going in to comfort him every three minutes which only seems to make him scream louder, kick harder and sweat profusely. Apparently other people's children actually fall asleep after several minutes. Not mine! Oh no, he wails and wails until the allotted 45 minutes have passed after which I tell him "You were so close to falling asleep! We'll try again tomorrow". For my efforts at the napping schedule I have frayed nerves, an exhausted child who still only sleeps in two hour stretches, and a husband who thinks I'm abusing our son. If there was ever an argument for giving up breast feeding in favor of Xanax, this is it. But I'm sure he'll eventually get the hang of the whole napping thing...let's just hope it's before I get to the point of needing a "vacation" at the nearest psych ward.
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