The baby’s been down for her late morning nap for the past hour-plus. I’m loving how well she’s napping, but hating how much she gets woken up by coughing. 🙁 Looking in the babycam, she seems to usually go right back to sleep, though. She naps the best on her tummy. It prevents the nocturnal jerks from waking her, and possibly because she’s sick, it makes her feel better than laying on her back having the post-nasal drip thing happen.

I realized that she’d really only skipped 1 meal, because she usually has a late-night meal (2-3am) OR an early morning meal (4-6am) and then goes back to sleep until about 7a. That made me feel better. Plus, she had a good-sized poopie this morning so I know she’s getting enough nutrition. Crap, poor thing’s coughing right now, her little body bouncing up and down on her mattress. 🙁 And now she settled back down and went back to sleep. I’m glad she’s able to still rest. Her body needs that. It also seems to keep her in good spirits despite how uncomfortable she must feel. She still smiles big at me after I deboogerize her, like she thinks it’s a game.

I never knew how much babies need to sleep. I just figured if she’s tired, she’d fall asleep. Not so; if she’s tired, she’d yawn. If not soothed to sleep and given the opportunity to sleep right about then, she’ll get overtired, wired, and start the fussing crying bit. I didn’t realize that at this ripe old age of 2.5 months, she can still only be up 1-2 hours at a time. After I read the sleep book where it addresses her age group and I’d been respecting her naps, the fussing has just about disappeared. Even if she were crying for a specific reason, the moment you address it she’s smiling. Sometimes the smile comes before the cry even ends. So what I’m doing is…

She wakes up around 7a. I change and feed her. She shows drowsy signs (yawning, spacing out, rubbing her face) within 30 mins after she finishes eating, which only gives me enough time to have put her in the Boppy and do some interactive songs with her before I pick her up, put her against my shoulder and start walking around humming or singing to soothe her. She’s asleep within a total of 1.5 hours after being awake, like 8:30a.
She naps from 8:30a to 10a-ish. It’s been 3 hours since her last feeding around 7a, so I change her, feed her, play with her a bit. She may watch me get ready in the bedroom while she hangs out in the Boppy on our bed, propped up with another pillow under the back of the Boppy. She’s now good on her own for up to 20 minutes so that gives me tons of freedom to do things like change, make food, etc with both hands. She just eats her hands, grabs a burp cloth so she can bring it to her mouth and “chew” on it, while looking around or watching me, giving me a big smile every time I turn and make eye contact with her or talk to her. Sometimes she coos her side of the conversation to me. She’s especially cooey in the mornings. She starts to show drowsy signs around 11:30a, after she’s been up 1.5 hours. I pick her up, soothe her, and she goes right to sleep easily in her crib when she’s drowsy enough.
She naps from 11:30a to 1:30-ish (unless we have Gymboree, then I sort of “encourage” her to wake up at 1p by opening her bedroom door and letting my downstairs sounds drift into her room). Since it’s been 3 hours or so since I’d last fed her, again I change and feed, then we go to Gymboree, or we take a stroll from the backyard to the front yard, get her some fresh air, have her say hi to all the plants and trees and flowers. Then we come in, hang out a bit or she sits in her high chair and plays with toys while I eat lunch, then she’s showing drowsy signs at 3-ish, and I soothe her and put her down. She may sleep until her daddy gets home from work a bit after 4:30p.
Then daddy gets her after a diaper change and a feeding. If the timing is such that I could pump and have a bottle for her when he gets home, then he bottlefeeds her so she would learn that someone other than I can provide nourishment to her (in preparation for my return to work). Then he plays with her as I wash all the pump parts and bottle parts.
Then she naps while we make/eat dinner. If the timing is such that we’re eating during her awake time, we put her in the high chair at the table and she hangs out while we eat, watching us, looking around, grabbing her burp rag to chew on, or watching us move her rattle around her face to work on her tracking skills. Sometimes daddy’ll entertain her during this awake time and I’ll go return phone calls or take a shower.
These days I try to time it so she gets her 6th meal around 7:30p-8p so that she could go down for the night around 8p. She may not fall asleep until 9:30p sometimes, but at least she’s quietly in her crib in the dark learning the difference between day and night. I’m usually sitting in the recliner next to her until she falls asleep, or seems stable enough with the pacifier that I could leave and hang out with the hubby. Yesterday we caught our first few TV shows together after months of not having the time to watch it together because of caring for Allie. (I say “watch it together” because he gets some TV time on his own here and there.)

Times are approximate and totally depends on her signs of drowsiness and the time she starts her day by waking up in the mornings. Basically, in any given 3ish-hour segment between feedings, it breaks down to
5 mins diaper change
25 mins feeding
30-45 mins awake and alert interactive playtime
15-30 mins soothing
1.5-2 hours nap (sometimes she sleeps half an hour and wakes up; some of those times she can be convinced to go back to sleep with a pacifier, sometimes not. and some of those times, something has to be fixed before she’d go back to sleep, such as a dirty diaper or a temperature issue. other times it’s okay to just give up and try again at the next nap time.)
The total time she’s up: 1.5 hours average. Amazing how fast that goes.

This is for future reference to document how much sleep a baby needs, in case I wondered what the heck I did all day on maternity leave.