Mon 19 Mar 2012
Allie popped up after 30 minutes from her 2nd nap. 30 mins isn’t nearly enough, and I know she’ll be yawning and tired and cranky. I decided to give her 5 mins to see if she’ll fall back to sleep as she seemed to be attempting the self-soothing every so often by sucking her thumb, but she was popping up and crying so hard I figured I’d have to get her at the end of the 5th minute. It was a hard 5 mins as she cried and yelled. As I was about to get up at the end of the 5th minute, beginning of the 6th, she got quiet. I waited and watched the monitor. She was sucking her thumb…and then she went back to sleep.
Have I been robbing her of longer naps before when I went and got her at the peak of her crying and yelling and just dealt with her yawning in my arms? Do other mothers know this, and I’ve just been too quick to respond due to my ignorance? Or have I accidentally let her cry it out thru a nap?
ha ha, congrats, don’t think too much about it. You’re just lucky. My kid didn’t do that for me. The sleep books did mention this, though, and it’s not cry it out. Something about kids getting annoyed and disoriented in between transitions, and some of them can resettle themselves like Allie, some can never quite get a hang of it, like mine 🙂
That nap lasted 2.5 hours! I would’ve robbed her of the last 2 hours if I’d gone in at her first cry.
And it happened AGAIN just now. After a loooong soothing period (she just wasn’t settling; too aware altho she was tired), I put her down, walk away, and FOUR MINUTES LATER the neighborhood kids outside woke her up. I watched her on the monitor pop up and move around, doing a little bit of a crawl on her stomach, turn herself diagonal in her crib, cry, and I went to the bathroom. It took 15 mins this time, but she’s asleep. I didn’t want to go in and pick her up and have soothed that long for nothing. I think it took longer this time cuz the kids didn’t shut up and go inside for those 15 mins.