six cats in the yard

When I took Madeleine in for her 2-month checkup, I also asked the doctor about her naps. We hadn’t really, at that point, thought too long or too hard about exactly how long or when she should be sleeping. I had just let her sleep when she fell asleep or when she seemed cranky. I didn’t really know about the “science of sleep” for babies.

I wasn’t really prepared for her response, because it made me feel like a neglectful parent for one thing, and her advice was contrary to the way I had decided to parent Maddie. She said that Maddie had to have two 3-hour naps each day, one in the morning and one in the evening and that if she wouldn’t go to sleep on her own in the crib, that I should let her cry herself to sleep.

I know that’s the advice a lot of people give, but it just wasn’t going to work for me. It broke my heart to hear her cry and there was no way I could do that, especially because the first time I tried it (and yes, the dr. made me feel bad enough with her speech that I had to try it to see if it really worked as simply as she said it would), she cried so hard that she lost her breath and I felt like a complete schmuck.

So, the bottom line, the discussion at the doctor’s office got me thinking, reading and talking to others about what I really should be doing about her daily nap schedule. And I realized that I had to start a routine for bedtimes.

Since we also didn’t really have a bath routine down, we decided to go with Emily’s and the No Sleep Solution recommendation and add bath time to the nightly bedtime routine. Luckily she loves her bathtime.