Sleep

My sister-in-law Laura tried to get me to read the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Kids before Connor was born and when he was little.  Before he was born, I was too overwhelmed with the prospect of labor, I couldn't think beyond it.  I really wish I had and read a book about breastfeeding.  I think I would have had an easy first three months if I had.  I barely had any problems though, so it's no big deal.

Sleep however, has been our issue.  I have been sleeping with Connor for all of his naps and at night since he was born.  Well, maybe there were a few times I put him in his bouncer or swing, but I've pretty much been holding him since he was a wee thing.  For the most part, that's been fine.  A little annoying when we were at my mom's for vacations or when I had things that I would rather be doing, but it made me rest at the same time as him and I've gotten A LOT of reading done.

A couple weeks ago I decided it was time to change things.  He's almost a year old and I would like to be free when he's napping.  I got Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Kids for my Kindle and had my mind blown.  I realized that I was keeping Connor up at night to fit my schedule and it was messing with his naps, so he wasn't having a good morning nap and a very short afternoon nap. 

We shifted his schedule to the one suggested in the book and it is working great!  Now we all wake up together around 6 and we try to get Connor down by 7.  It's taken some getting used to and trial and error to figure out how to get him to sleep when it's still light outside, but I'm slowly figuring it out.

The other major change to Connor's sleep is trying to get him to sleep by himself for his afternoon nap.  After trying for 9 days, we were both exhausted, since he wasn't sleeping and it was making his night time sleep disturbed.  We took a break for a week and today was day two of our second attempt.  Both days he has cried for about 20 minutes and then slept for a half hour before waking up.  I've been getting him and sitting with him in the chair so he can finish his nap, but I hope the time he can sleep on his own will get longer and long.  I'm still trying to figure that part out.

As the result of him sleeping more and me getting more of a break, we've been enjoying our time together more and we love being able to spend time with Daddy in the morning.  I hope we can keep figuring things out and that soon both of his naps will be on his own so we can start working on him sleeping in his own bed at night!