A new year is full of possibilities. It just begs you to try new things. So we did.
I should begin with a disclaimer: Rebel Mom that I am, my daughter sleeps on her stomach AND with bumpers in the crib! Commence finger wagging now. I'll sit back and await the nasty comments to trickle through.
However, I really don't care what anyone has to say on the matter because Bean regularly sleeps 11 (count them!) hours almost every night. She's starting to teeth we think, so we're slowly losing a hour here and there- which sucks, let me tell you. But that is why I have an awesome husband who is willing to get up at 4:30am and give the child her bottle.
The bumpers are necessary because on her stomach, our baby travels the crib. Most mornings, we find her 90 degrees from the place we laid her down, head against the side of the crib, arms flailing, and crying "Hey people, I don't want to be on my stomach anymore, come get me out of here NOW!" She is rather insistent that way. But the point here is that I'd rather her bang her head against soft fabric rather than hard wooden rails. Yep, I'm a horrible mother, aren't I?
Anyway, this morning we decided to change things up and have her nap on her back. Yesterday she fell asleep on my chest and after an hour I really needed to get up and move. So I carefully laid her down on the couch and wrapped the blanket I was cuddling her with tightly around her little body. I waited for her to wake up. She didn't. So, we had proof she could sleep on her back still. But I'm not insane enough to try this at night when we might disturb the long beautiful hours of sleep she usually gives us.
So, thinking we're really smart, we thought we'd try putting her down on her back for her naps only. After finishing her breakfast feed a little while ago, I put her down for her nap (on her back) and went to go have a shower. R was getting laundry together and could keep an eye on her while we waited for her to go to sleep. A while later (I swear I was a marine creature in a previous life), I come out of the bathroom to hear her laying there noisily sucking on her thumbs.
Awake.
I went into her room and looked down at her. Her lids were heavy and I could tell she really wanted to go to sleep. Considering she'd been down for 20 minutes already, I doubted she'd fall asleep on her own anytime soon. Then she opened her eyes and gave me a look that said, "Mama, I'm really tired! Can I go to sleep now?" So, I turned her over on her stomach, fixed her blankets and told her to have a good nap.
Less than five minutes later she was soundly asleep.
Moral of the story? Bean knows exactly what she likes and wants, and her parents are idiots.
6 comments:
As long as she doesn't have a lot of fluffy, squishy things in her crib, the tummy is fine. They went with an across the board "back to sleep" is because there are parents out there who are too clueless to avoid the soft, cushy pads that can pocket and cause the babies to inhale their own carbon dioxide.
Basically, all I have to say is kudos for figuring it out.
So glad she's giving you so many hours of rest at night.
Feel like you are catching up on your sleep?
PS: Not idiots.
We are rule breakers as well. Tummy sleeper? Check. Crib bumpers? Check.
Our choices were either let Skeeter sleep on his stomach or listen to Skeeter scream for hours on end. The choice was obvious.
I laugh every time I go and get him out of his crib. He scoots and helicopters so much he is never even remotely in the place where I left him.
I can't wag my finger at you.. Conor sleeps on his tummy too and has bumper pads as well so we can both be bad parents :)
My son rolled over at 11 weeks, and slept on his belly from there on out. Doesn't matter if we started the night on his back- he'd directly turn on his belly, so we quite putting him on his back.
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