I love that Owen now loves his burpie blanket…and he’s cute as the dickens when he’s carrying it around and playing or cuddling with it…but sometimes I actually regret giving it to him in the first place…because we now get a mini toddler meltdown if we don’t bring it downstairs after he wakes up (in the morning or from a nap). Even if there’s another one (the backup) waiting downstairs. 🙁 This morning we didn’t even make it to the top of the stairs before the crying was turning into sobs. I guess it could be worse, though…so I’ll try not to complain.
Category Archives: Sleeping & Napping
Whimpering, night #3.
Last night was better—he woke up crying (more like loud whimpering) at 8:45 and since he didn’t sound too bad, we let him cry, hoping he’d go back to sleep. Which he did after about three minutes.
As we were going to bed about 9:45, he did it again. This time it was a loooooong seven minutes before he soothed himself and went back to sleep.
This morning Tom asked if I heard him crying at 2am (I didn’t—I was apparently dead to the world) and Tom said it only lasted a few minutes before he was back asleep.
So it looks like maybe we’re on the upswing?
(Oh, friends suggested it was his second set of molars…which it might very well be, though it’s nearly impossible to check since he won’t open his mouth on command and if you stick a finger in you get chomped.)
Crying, night #2.
He went to bed about 8 and I was looking forward to getting to bed early. Except he started crying about 8:45. 🙁
We did the Sesame Street thing again, then put him down about 9:30. Come 10:15 he was at it again, and we eventually ended up back downstairs, where we stayed until 2am. Thankfully he stayed quiet the rest of the night.
I really hope this ends quickly, because if it continues…I don’t see us going on our planned two-week vacation. 🙁
Not a fun day or night.
11:49am
Owen just woke up mid-nap crying like crazy. I went up to get him and he proceeded to vomit all over. I don’t think he’s sick, so maybe the violent crying provoked it? Or maybe he didn’t feel good and that was why he was crying. The fun thing with toddlers is you’ll never know. 🙁
7:00pm
We put him down for the night and it was like any other night behavior-wise, so we hoped for the best. We hoped he was extra tired since he hadn’t really napped at all. He finally fell asleep around 7:30.
8:26pm
He woke up crying again…but no vomit. /phew
He was inconsolable for a good 10-15 minutes—not wanting to be held by either of us, not wanting to rock, not wanting any of his toys, etc. He did let us take his temp (which was a little high (100-101) but nothing to worry about. He finally took a few teething tablets (which he LOVES and usually cures anything!), but he was still upset and definitely not ready to go back to bed. So we all watched an episode of Sesame Street in our bed, gave him some Tylenol (against his will).
9:46pm
When Sesame Street was almost over, we asked if he wanted to go to bed and he grabbed his blankie and got off the bed! He laid there quietly for awhile and finally fell asleep about 11. I had stayed up to watch, having been assigned kid duty from 10-3 (Tom had 3-8).
11:32pm
He was up crying madly at 11:30—inconsolable for a good 15 minutes. I finally got him quieted down in the rocker after about a half hour, put him back in the crib…and he immediately started up again, completely inconsolable (again). So after more rocking and attempts at consoling…we ended up downstairs on the recliner at 12:30 where we both slept on and off.
4:00am
I desperately had to pee, so decided it was time to try going upstairs. I carried him to his crib and kept my fingers crossed. Tom tolled over and I gave him the quick update (he hadn’t even known I was gone). Of course I was wide awake and didn’t fall asleep until probably 4:30-5:00.
5:47am
I heard Tom get up, rolled over, and went back to sleep until 8. Turns out Owen slept until about 7 and was quiet until about 7:30 when Tom got him up. So, apparently Tom got the easy hours, though he says he didn’t sleep much anyway.
I hope it was a one-night thing, because that was not fun. This is about the same thing that happened back in May when we were staying at a hotel in Frankenmuth and he woke up crying in a daze (but no vomit)—and later, at my mom’s house, when he got sick at bedtime then refused to sleep in his pack-and-play and I had to sit with him in a rocking chair all night.
Isn’t parenting fun? 😮
Sleeping in…today only!
Every time Owen sleeps past 6-6:30 (which is quite rare), I get excited that it might mean his sleep schedule is changing and I’ll be able to sleep in… Then again, I also freak out thinking something might be wrong with him and I have to listen to him breathe via the video monitor. 😐
This morning he ended up sleeping in until almost 8! He might have been up REALLY early and fell back to sleep, but he was still sleeping when I first looked at the monitor at 6:30.
Stinker.
He loves his blankie!
Three videos and a picture!
This is probably how he uses his chair about half the time. Cute, but not really a good thing to do.
After his nap in his dark room, so I was using the phone light to record.
Of course I missed the best parts of him on the couch, but this is some of what he was doing.
And one of his sleeping positions…
What the…?!?
So I put Owen down for his afternoon nap and went down to the basement for about 20 minutes. When I came back up, I turned on the monitor—and it was all static. Oh great, I thought—the not-very-old monitor died. I fiddled with it a bit, but nothing. So I thought I’d go upstairs and check the handheld monitor—and that one was on the fritz, too…which meant that something had happened to the camera.
So I went to peek in Owen’s room and look for the camera—and it’s not on the dresser. And I had to do a second-take because his penguin humidifier wasn’t on the dresser, either. I had a split-second thought of “Was it there when I put him down?” before I looked down and…saw the camera in the middle of the floor and the humidifier IN TWO PIECES IN HIS CRIB!
Yep, the little shit pulled both of them off the dresser! He was sleeping peacefully so I didn’t worry about it too much—but I am sure the bedding is soaked (because the humidifier was probably half full).
What a kid!
Things they are a’ changin.
So Owen’s tastes have been changing again. He used to love fried eggs—we’d have at least one a day. Now he won’t touch them. He used to love granola bars—we’d sometimes have maybe two a day and he could easily eat one per meal. Lately he won’t eat more than one bite. But one day this week, for his pre-breakfast snack, I gave him one as a test and he ate the whole thing! Apparently for his less favorite foods I have to make sure he’s hungry. Sometimes he’ll eat strawberries but not too often. But this morning? He ate two! TWO! Wheeee! It’s an ever-changing game that is very frustrating. At least he still loves yogurt.
I also am really NOT liking this changing-of-the-nap-times thing. Just when I had it all figured out and things were running super smoothly…it changes. I really don’t like the trial and error of figuring out just what his new nap time should be. One day I tried at 10am (his old time) and that didn’t fly so he didn’t end up napping until 11. The next day he was practically falling asleep at 8:30 but it was way too early for a nap—so we waited, and he seemed a little tired again at 10:45 but he certainly wasn’t laying down to nap…and he let me hear his displeasure. The next day I had an errand to run at 9 which I thought would surely work with his schedule…except he fell asleep in the car at 9:15! |-| So now every day is a new game.
Midnight freak out!
So Owen freaked us the hell out last night. We were in a hotel, had put him to bed around his normal time, and that was that. We also decided to go to bed early, so we were in the room with him, and he made his usual little noises while he was sleeping. Tom and I had a hell of time trying to sleep—but that’s our fault for going to bed early in a water park hotel with a hundred kids running up and down the halls screaming. Anyway, no idea what time it was (though it turned out to be about midnight) I hear Owen start whining and whimpering. It was fairly quiet, so I thought it might just be something normal that we don’t hear because we’re not in the same room. Then it got louder and more insistent. And it scared me, because he’s NEVER EVER done that. I gave it a minute and the nurturer in me had to go get him.
By this time, Tom has heard him and woken up and we’re both kinda freaking out because he’s now CRYING and it’s the worst little cry and it’s breaking our hearts. He sounded like he was having trouble breathing, so I was really freaking out, and a hundred things were going through my mind. (In the end, I think it was just from the heavy crying.) But I was envisioning us having to go to the hospital because he was having an allergic reaction or something…and we weren’t in our hometown, and I had no idea where the hospital was (or even if there was one). Luckily Tom got up and took him for a few minutes while I tried to calm down. He seemed to be calming down so I went to the bathroom and apparently when I shut the bathroom door (and cut the light to the room) Owen freaked out again. So we were thinking bad dream or just unusual circumstances (he hadn’t gotten his best naps that day)—we didn’t know but he was certainly not himself and totally freaked out.
He calmed down again so Tom put him back in the crib and he instantly started crying again. It was horrible and we felt totally clueless. We got him out again and tried a bottle, thinking back that he hadn’t eaten much dinner. He drank that plus ate a yogurt, so he was certainly hungry. But hungry enough to wake him up and make him cry like that?
Needless to say I didn’t sleep much the rest of the night. We left the bathroom light on with the door open, and I was listening to his every move and every sound, checking the monitor every 10 seconds when he was [finally] quiet to make sure he was still breathing. And on top of that I was too hot, then too cold, too hot, too cold, ad nauseum. And Tom did fall asleep and was snoring. So I might have gotten two hours of piecemeal sleep from 9p-6a.
I posted on Facebook, and a friend said it might be night terrors. 88| I hadn’t thought of that, and Googling said it might be something similar (confusional arousal; night terrors are technically in older toddlers and are much, much worse).
Episodes of confusional arousals in children may seem bizarre and frightening to parents. The child can have a confused look on his or her face and “stare right through” you. Children may become more agitated when you try to comfort them. Most episodes last from five to fifteen minutes. But they may last as long as thirty to forty minutes in some youth.
This definitely sounds like what happened—and could have been brought on by a handful of things including unfamiliar situation, stress, and inadequate rest (which was definitely the case that day).
After talking to some other parent friends about what happened, they said it was most likely just a little nightmare, compounded by waking up hungry and in an unfamiliar place, then getting scared again when the (bathroom) light went out and not wanting to go back to the unfamiliar crib.
UPDATE: He slept fine the next night, so we’re hoping it was a one-time thing.
More post-nap fun!
I saw on the monitor that he was up, so I gave him about 10 minutes to wake up. I went upstairs to get him and he didn’t want to get out! So I let him sit while I went to the bathroom. I came back and he still didn’t want to get out…and he was having fun. So I went downstairs to get the camera, came back up, and got this—a straight 10 minutes of fun!
Burpie Naptime Hysteria
We thought Owen was tired enough for his afternoon nap. We watched him on the monitor, and he kept rolling around and playing with his burpies—tossing them around in his crib and laughing and shrieking. Mom and I were having a ball watching and listening to him on the monitor.
After about 20 minutes, mom went up to check on him to see if he wanted to come out…and he didn’t. He wanted to keep playing! So then I was watching and listening to BOTH of them on the monitor—and also hearing them down the hallway—and I couldn’t stand it and had to go up myself and take the camera!
Please forgive the bad quality in the first video segment—the camera lens was a little dirty from SOMEONE (cough, Owen, cough) carrying it around and chewing on it. 🙂
I cursed myself.
Yeah, I should know better. NEVER talk about how great Owen is at napping… He didn’t take an afternoon nap AT ALL yesterday or a morning nap today. 🙁
Napping Rave!
I know I’ve said it before, but I just have to say what a great napper Owen is…
After talking to my mom’s group today about naps, apparently Owen is the King of Naps. Everyone else has to deal with multiple 15 minute naps or maybe one 45 minute nap if they’re lucky. And my little sweetie gives me (on average) TWO 2-HOUR naps a day. 😀
I guess this is what I get since he’s become a picky eater. 😉
Daylight Savings Time
I was a bit worried about DST this time, since Owen has a real schedule now (as opposed to when he was too young to really notice) and I was afraid he would get really messed up. And you all know how I hate doing anything (ANYTHING!!) that will mess with his sleep schedule.
So he went to bed a little later than normal last night—he’s been taking long afternoon naps again (like up to two hours!) which means he’s getting up from his nap at 5:30—so he didn’t go to bed until about 7:30. But he got up at his normal time this morning, which means he actually slept an extra hour…YAY OWEN!
But the biggest YAY was that it meant we were still on the same schedule—with him napping at around 10am for two hours. But then he took a late afternoon two-hour nap again…and was SO NOT TIRED at 7:30 when we tried to put him down. He tossed and turned and didn’t really fall asleep until 8:30! 88|
So, we have NO idea what to expect tomorrow morning…if he’ll sleep his normal number of hours (which means “sleeping in” until 8:30, which will throw off the rest of the day’s typical schedule) or if he’ll be up at his normal clock-time of 6:30-7:00 (which means he will not have gotten his usual 12+ hours of sleep).
Life is always interesting with a kid, right?
Sleeping in, part 2!
Yessiree, we both slept in again this morning! I woke up at about 7:30 and by the time I got up to pee, Owen was banging on the walls! (So, granted, he might have been up a bit earlier, but still…that’s later than it usually it.)
Unfortunately, I think it might be because the house is quiet in the early morning, with Tom being gone…so when Tom comes home, the early mornings will start again. I want Tom home, of course, but MAN do I love sleeping in until 7:30.
Sleeping in!
Yay to Owen, who slept in until 7:30—which also means I got to sleep in until 7:30 (actually I woke up first)! Mornings are sooooo much nicer when you get to wake up on your own time…
Naps, they are a changin’…
First, I think we are slowly moving towards one big nap a day. For the past few days (this morning notwithstanding) Owen has slept in until 7:30 or 8. We assumed it was because Tom stopped showering in the guest bathroom (which he did to try not to wake me up, but was very loud for Owen’s room). While my dad and stepmom were here, and he didn’t need to go to work, he stopped showering in the early morning and Owen seemed to sleep longer. Well, on those days that he slept in, he only took one long midafternoon nap—still going to bed at his normal time. BUT…just when we thought we had a new pattern emerging…this morning he was up—babbling and playing—at 6:15. So who knows what’s going on.
But, second, I think Owen’s naps have moved to his crib vs. the living room pack-n-play. We (I) loved having him in the living room because it was easy to put him down and know when he got up. We could also, of course, peek in on him and how cute he is when sleeping. He would nap without any issues 99.9% of the time.
Things started to change once he could stand up, however, because if he wasn’t quite tired enough, he would pull back the blankets (which we had covering the pack-n-play to make it darker) and grin from ear to ear…not wanting to miss anything because he knew we were still around (which used to be helped by the blanket because he couldn’t see us). But, even with his new ability to stand up…if he was tired enough, he’d still fall asleep eventually.
But lately he just doesn’t seem to want to sleep in there. I know he’s tired but he wants to stand and look around and see me and play. So I’ve started putting him in his crib when he seems tired—and for the past two days, it has seemingly worked well, with him falling asleep in under 10 minutes and sleeping anywhere from 1.5 to 2 hours.
So now, I have to decide if I want to totally remove the pack-n-play from the living room. One one hand, it would free up a big chunk of space…but on the other hand, we use the diaper changing part of the pack-n-play religiously throughout the day. We could relocate the changing table part of it to the ottoman, but then that would require us (and grandparents) getting on our/their knees to change a diaper. XX( (Although, honestly, the day is coming…as he’s technically already over the suggested 25# weight limit on the p-n-p diaper thingy.) We don’t even have a changing table in his room that we could bring down–we just used the top of a dresser. Or we leave the pack-n-play where it is and use it for storage. 🙂
Decisions, decisions…
What happened to my good napper?
Morning naps are usually still pretty easy, but afternoon naps? Ay carumba! XX(
He’s only 10.5 months old, so he really can’t be ready to ditch the nap entirely…but every day he fights it and fights it and fights it and I can tell he’s tired…but he takes forever to go down. Up until recently, 3:30 is the latest I would put him down, so that his hour nap would have him up at 4:30, in time to eat dinner, get a bath, and get ready for bed. But now it’s 4:21 and he’s screeching and kicking away, looking at me over the side of the crib.
Needless to say this is VERY unlike him and it’s driving me nuts. NUTS. Last week I chalked it up to teething and being sick, but he has NO excuse this week. Maybe it’s time for him to nap in his crib instead of the pack and play? All I know is something needs to change.
This is what I see after a nap.
So we still have Owen taking his naps in the pack-n-play in the living room, and we still have it covered with blankets so he can’t see out. But now that he can get to his feet, this is what I usually see after he’s done napping… It’s so cute because when he sees me see him, he laughs and giggles.
And once he’s had time to move around a bit and pull off the blankets:
Houdini!
Owen is a Houdini in his crib. Tom said he went in this morning to check on him and sometime during the night he had managed to sneak his arms out through (over? under?) the mesh bumper to a bedside table and pull the (unplugged) clock radio cord AND an unused extension cord INTO his crib. 88|
I had actually forgotten the cords were there—they had been there for at least a few days—but how did he even know they were there? Was he just fishing for anything and caught them? Did he see them and then try to get them?
I know he loves cords, but that was impressive!
What a kid.
First trip to the mall!
We wanted to hit Baby Gap for some more socks, so it was off to Somerset. I have only been there once since we moved here (when I went to Nordstroms for my spa afternoon shortly after Owen was born) and Tom had never been there…
We ran a few other errands first, and Owen fell asleep in the 10 minutes it took between stops. I hated to wake him up but we really wanted to hit the mall. (Normally when he falls asleep in the car, we’re on our way home and he goes straight from the car to his crib to try and finish his nap.) We half expected him to fall asleep in the stroller but there was too much to see so he was wide awake!
We had lunch first, which included feeding him as well. What fun he had! Puffs on the floor, hands flailing about and landing in the food dad had opened and placed too close to the epicenter, and trying both of our soups! I think we went through four wipes, which is twice as many as we usually use at home!
He managed to stay awake the entire time we were at the mall, and didn’t even fall asleep on the ride home! However, once home and fed a bottle, he slept for…are you ready?? THREE AND A HALF HOURS! He was getting up at the time he is normally getting ready for bed! He ended up going to bed about 7 (so, not too much later than normal) and even though he didn’t seem totally tired, he was out in less than 15 minutes.
…Finishing the story here instead of posting the following day…
AND HE SLEPT IN UNTIL 7:15! Which was great for him, since that meant he slept his typical 12 hours (instead of getting up at 5am regardless of what time he went to bed) but it stunk for Tom since he didn’t get his normal morning baby time like he does every weekday morning.
So, we’re intrigued to see if the sleep pattern continues (7p-7a) or if it will go back to normal (more like 6p-6a). Amazingly, he slept through the time change PERFECTLY—sleeping through to his normal wake-up time of about 6:30 (meaning he slept an extra hour!).
First Night Teething
We did give him Motrin before he went to bed (about 6:15). All went well, and I finally fell asleep about 9:30 (I had a case of acid reflux), only to be woken up by him screaming at 10:20. But just as suddenly he was quiet again, so I fell back to sleep, only to be woken up at 10:40 by him screeching again. 🙁
I managed to drag myself out of bed (I felt even worse now), gave him some teething tablets, then listened to him for another half hour or so, waiting to hear if his screeching got worse (or better), knowing I couldn’t give him any more Motrin until at least 2am. He finally fell asleep about 11:30, and did sleep through until 6:15 (yay!). Unfortunately, I still slept like crap the rest of the night—plus Tom’s alarm went off at 4am—so I am exhausted this morning.
Face-Plant Olympics
These were all taken the same night, over maybe 30 minutes.
Face plant! His helmet must give him just enough room to breathe. So cute, but still hard to watch.
Face plant–now with thumb sucking!
Half face plant with his butt in the air! This is starting to sound like an Olympic event!
Stomach sleeping!
Over the past few days, Owen has started flipping over on his stomach in his crib (in the mornings) or the pack-and-play (during naps). He doesn’t much like it and gets really cranky when it happens. What’s ironic is that he already knows how to roll from his stomach -> back but he seems to forget it once he gets there. :))
Last night, though, he flipped over in the time it took for me to put him down, walk to the bedroom to get the monitor, and turn it on! Stinker! So I went back in and flipped him back over. He squirmed around like normal, and somewhere around 7:30-8 he must have flipped again because he heard the noise! At about 8pm, when he just couldn’t get settled, we debated leaving him to cry it out so he learns to fall asleep that way (without our intervention) but he just seemed soooo tired (he is normally asleep by that time, and here he was still flailing about) so Tom eventually went in and flipped him over, and Owen was out about three minutes later. Poor kid.
This morning at 5:30 sharp he was squawking in there so we looked at the monitor and—yep—on his stomach! Tom let him be for a bit, but then got him up so I could sleep. For his first nap, he was on his stomach pretty quick, and I just left him. He finally fell asleep face down—which was definitely freaky to see (and I made sure he was still breathing!)—especially since he had that silly burp cloth under his face!
Of course it doesn’t look comfortable, but I just let him be—going over every little bit to make sure he was still breathing!
Somewhat Cranky Day
The problem with having a really good [natured] baby is that when crankiness sets in for undetermined reasons, it gets frustrating REALLY fast. 🙁
The morning went well, and Owen took an nap from about 8:30-9:30. Then he ate a bit and we went on a few errands. He was cranky when we got home, and I just assumed he was hungry (it WAS lunch time). Halfway through the peas, he got really cranky and was pushing the spoon away and crying. I mean CRYING. Hmmm, okay. He obviously didn’t want that.
Turns out he was tired! Who knew? Especially since he had already had a nap that morning (and he’s been taking fewer and shorter naps). So he slept for about an hour. When he got up I tried food again.
Ha.
This time we finished the peas and barely started the peaches when he was instantly cranky again…and after some trial and error, it turned out he wanted milk. Hoo boy. 🙁
He didn’t eat much so we tried his favorite bouncy chair. Nope. Still cranky. Another nap? Oh no, screaming. Sitting and playing? Nothing doing. So we sat on the couch and watched Sesame Street and he was calm and quiet (well, sucking on his burp cloth and thumb) for quite some time. Then he “agreed” to sit and play for a bit…and now he’s getting cranky, but I think it’s tired…so nap time is coming soon.
What a day. He’s so good overall that I really just have to take a breath when we have these cranky times…because they are so very few and far between.
Sitting and surprising dad!
So for the past few days, Owen has been sitting SO well on his own that I can leave him sit and play without sitting behind him. His balance is much better and he can right himself if he starts to tip! YAY! That said, he still tips over once in a great while, or if he’s really reaching for a toy.
So tonight Owen was sitting on the floor playing and I was getting stuff ready for dinner. Tom came home and was talking to me in the kitchen. He made some comment about Owen sleeping and I said “No, he’s playing in there!” And he rushed over and was SO surprised! Apparently I had forgotten to tell him that Owen was sitting on his own now (well, sitting for long periods and playing on his own).
Tom was SOOOO excited! He just stood there and watched him, smiling. 🙂
Good times, good times.
P.S. And the napping hasn’t resolved itself yet. Naps are still all over the place, and run anywhere from 30 minutes to 2½ hours.
Naps
So his nap schedule seems to be changing.
At first I thought we were just trying to overcome missing a nap a few days in a row (we’ve happened to be in the car around his nap time so he falls asleep—but have to wake him up to take him out of the new car seat)…but he seems to be less tired throughout the day.
Take today, for instance. He was up about 6:30am and didn’t take a nap before his 9:45 appointment. Normally he naps around 7:30 or 8 (at the latest) but today he was having NONE of it.
As a sidenote, I had to go shower and thought maybe he would fall asleep if he didn’t see or hear me. I was only upstairs for like 10 minutes TOPS and when I came down, I heard frantic crying. His “I’m very unhappy” cry. Sobbing almost. I couldn’t figure out what would be wrong—he had just eaten, been changed, and should be tired. I went over to him and—OH MY!—he had rolled over onto his stomach and was just laying there, face-plant style. He obviously couldn’t roll himself back over, so was crying in frustration. Poor little guy was sobbing crocodile tears. I picked him up and within a minute (heck, probably 30 seconds) he was just fine, smiling and laughing. Stinker.
So anyway, he certainly wasn’t about to nap, so I thought we’d leave for the appointment early and if he fell asleep in the car, I’d just drive around for a bit so he could at least get a 30-40 minute nap. Well, he fell asleep for about 15 minutes. Argh!! I had an errand to run after the appointment, and he didn’t fall asleep in the stroller, but did for about five minutes on the way home. So I brought him inside and put him down and…STILL NOT SLEEPING. Although he rolled over onto his stomach again and started crying again.
So he hasn’t really napped since he got up this morning. At 6:30. And it’s noon. Yikes. (Cat naps don’t count.) He normally naps every 2-3 hours.
My boy is growing up!!!
— time lapse —
So right after I posted this, he fell asleep. And he’s still sleeping. Which means he’s been sleeping for about 2 hours and 41 minutes. Yikes. I wonder if he will nap again today or just go to bed at his normal 6:30ish time?
PJ feet!
Side sleeping!
So we checked the monitor (as we always do) before going to bed ourselves, and this is what we saw! Oh my gosh! Too cute!
We then watched him for probably 20 minutes, and his little hands moved (opened and closed), his feet wiggled, his mouth opened and closed (and it looked like he was sucking a non-existent pacifier)…but he never rolled onto his back.
Such a little gem. 🙂