Naps

Today has been all about naps. Mine and Audrey's

After another night of approx four hours broken sleep; I was shattered again today so spent the day trying to catnap - which anyone with a baby will tell you is a lot harder than it sounds. Even when your baby is asleep, there are a million things to do. And (as seems to be the case with me), once I've done all those things you can guarantee that the minute you climb into bed, your baby will wake. Blinking typical!

I did manage ten minutes just now though. Which got me thinking...how long should the ideal powernap be? Turns out (from a quick web search) that in a university study of individuals restricted to only 5hrs sleep per night (i.e. me), they found a 10min power nap was overall the most recuperative. I'm sold! Apparently any more and you can be left feeling groggy and worse than you did pre-nap! That solves that then!

As for Audrey. Her naps are all over the place these days. We used to be able to set our watch by them (roughly an hour after a feed basically) but not anymore. She's so confusing. Sometimes she doesn't seem tired but has been on the go for two ot three hours and the minute you pop her in the crib or pram, poof...she's out like a light! Other times, she's yawning, rubbing her eyes and displaying all the "Hey dummy I'm tired" signs, yet you put her down and there's no chance of getting her to sleep as she just wails. Only seeming content when you pull her out again.

In the pram after her mid-morning feed (10ish), we can sometimes get her to sleep for up to two hours if we're rolling. Yet other days it's only 45mins. Today it was only 20mins as I stupidly wheeled her back into the house in the hope of a spot of lunch in front of Downton Abbey. This. Never. Works!!

This has resulted in her sleeping for over an hour and a half this afternoon at 2.30pm confusingly instead.

In the last week, Audrey has been consistently dropping what we call the 'pre-bath nap' with sometimes devastating consequences!! Namely meltdowns of epic proportions designed to test the patience of a saint (of which I am not). This means we keep having to pull the bath forward, along with the final feed and bedtime. Which means she wakes earlier the next morning. And needs a longer morning nap...and so on...

And there endeth my nap rant.

In other news, we went to the library this morning for a Baby and Toddler Storytime morning complete with special guest (a middle-aged woman overheating in a rabbit costume!) The place was rammed. Prams everywhere and Mums (and am happy to report Dads of the stay-at-home variety) and their offspring packed into a back room prittsticking cardboard rabbits to makeshift hats in time for a singalong. Audrey (once fed - we were late as ever - so the bottle came with us) seemed to enjoy it. Jigging about and staring at all the little people. It was nice to feel part of the community and meet a few more Mums too. Popped for an Earl Grey with Laura and Kate afterwards which was lovely.