Spurty Spice

So, as soon as I wrote a post about SweetPea’s penchant for schedules, she goes and proves me wrong.  I expect this will be a pattern in my life.

In the last week, SweetPea has decided that she will nap on her own time and also not be happy about it.  We’ve had more crying jags at a higher intensity than ever before.  It’s obvious (to us) that she’s just too wound up to sleep.  While we want to teach her to fall asleep on her own, more often than not this week, I’ve found myself jiggling her and holding her pacifier in her mouth in hopes that she’ll calm down and conk out.  Or we just put her in her crib and let her cry it out for 5 minutes and then go in and check in on her.  Sometimes we only have to go in once.  Other times (and this is mostly at night) it seems that I’m getting out of bed 6 or 8 times just to put her pacifier back in.

She seems to have gotten heavier in the past week, so I’m chalking up this new sleepytime behavior to a growth spurt.

Her pattern has been to be extremely alert and talkative and then quickly dissolve into a crying, kicking, flailing mess.  Our plan is to try to engage her for a shorter amount of time and then wind her down when she shows the first sign of tired (or before that, if we’re really good).  We’re hoping that she’ll be calm enough then that when she notices she’s tired, it’s easy for her to drop off to sleep.

It sounds good in theory.  I’ll let you know how it turns out in practice.  I’m sure as soon as we get this worked out, it will be on to the next phase of babyhood and our safe little schedule/plan will be uprooted yet again.

I see I’m going to have to loosen up on this “I have a plan” thing with this parenthood business.