Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Not Napping


My latest new-mommy challenge has been that Isla is not napping. Many people have come up to us and said how great it is when kids are little babies, because they sleep all the time. But, oh no, I do not get to enjoy the saving grace of nap time. Instead, Isla takes short little mini-naps all day, and then spirals into continuous crabbyness as the day wears on. This crabbyness usually reaches its height around the time Jason comes home from work, and then continues until about 9 or 10 o'clock, when she falls asleep out of exhaustion for 4 hours. Now, Isla is a champ sleeper at night, and has usually will give us a 5-6 hour stretch in the middle of the night to morning. Here are some photos of Isla not napping. Here, you see her in a warrior pose, as if to say, "Ha ha, I have conquered you and your attempts at getting anything done today!"



And here the look of determination in her little eyes- "Oh, are you tired, Mommy? You want to take a nap? Not going to happen!"

'Not napping' brings me to another subject... Thumbsucking. I sensed from early on that this little girl was going to follow in my footsteps and become a thumbsucker. I suspect 'not napping' might have something to do with this. Isla has begun to refuse her binky. She makes a face and pokes it out with her tongue if you try to give her one. I try all 4 binky brands that we have on a daily basis to see if any will catch on. Meanwhile, she fishes around for something to suck on... making sucky-Coy-fish-at-the-top-of-the-pond face at anything that passes by, and sometimes just into midair. Well, this week, she has begun the hunt for her thumb, sucking on the radial side of her fisted right hand. This often frustrates her, as she lacks the finger individualization, and can only have all fingers flexed, or all extended.

Here in this photo you can see she achieved success... this resulted in the one and only .... (wait for it).... 3 hour nap! But, these events have not been reproduced since. While I don't want Isla to have the oh-so-hard-to-quit habit of thumbsucking, I long for the day when she can soothe her self to sleep. And perhaps when waking up after a mini-nap, she can soothe herself back to sleep for a longer nap.


1 comment:

carolinpeoria said...

Her cuteness keeps her awake.