Solo Parental Leave Diaries, Day 1: Nap Ambitions
It's been almost four years since I had solo parental leave with my first child. So as I lay there next to my second, her overtired and letting me know it, I cursed my ambition for wanting to get her onto a three-nap schedule. You see, kids reduce the number of naps they need over time. Fewer naps generally mean longer naps, and longer stretches to actually do something: exercise, cooking, World of Warcraft re-releases... Here's the problem:
Babies (humans?) don't like to stay awake when they're tired. And a baby that stays awake too long quickly gets overtired. They can typically go from chill, to cranky (time to put them down), to chill, to extremely mad at life, the universe and everything. At stage three, there's a good chance you're thinking you're the best solo parent to have ever graced the earth, but YA DONE GOOFED, and now you're going to pay the piper.
I've been through this many, many times, but watching her on the floor go from gurning to relaxed, all I could think was how nice this nap was gonna be.
Fortunately, she let me off easy this time, with just a little extra soothing required; a warning shot across the bow.
As I said, it's been four years since the last time I had solo parental leave; I've forgotten all the valuable lessons I learned the first time round. This time, I'm taking notes.