Shhh, the baby's sleeping...

I read somewhere that baby growth and development charts are either loved or hated.  Loved by those parents who have children who are above and beyond the average because they can brag about how advanced their child is.  And hated by those who have children who are developing at their own pace or slower than average.

So who are we?

It is an average.  By definition, some kids should be above and some should be below. That's what average is all about.

Can you tell who we are now?

By three months, babies should start to develop nap schedules.  At least a morning nap lasting about an hour or two.  Should being the key word.  Miss Anna is a bit all over the map with her naps.  She like to nap. Sometimes. Other times, she flat out boycotts naps. Not like screaming at the top of her lungs boycotting more like I'm going to lay here and talk to anything I can see boycotting.

We have a naptime routine. It invovles a new diaper, nursing if she's hungry, quieting down with a lullaby or a story, etc.  After a few minutes, I lay her in her crib, say a quick prayer, and RUN.  The prayer usually goes like this, "Please God let her sleep!" (hehe)

At that point the ball is in her court, sometimes she falls asleep for a while and sometimes she starts talking to herself.  IF she falls asleep, she sleeps for no more than an hour, typically about 45 minutes.  IF she chooses not to sleep and talks to herself, I can't blame her because I talk to myself too.  I know this because as I was making dinner tonight Allen was trying to finish up a paper for work.  I was talking to him about something (honestly, I don't even remember) and turned to him for an answer and realized he was listening to music through his headphones.  He saw me looking at him and said, "Sorry, I have to concentrate to get this done."  See, I talk to myself enough to distract him! Oh well, I went back to cooking dinner and talking to myself while he finished his paper.  I digress... I typically leave her talking to herself for 30 to 45 minutes. I peek my head in now and then to see if she's fallen asleep and usually she hasn't.  We sometimes have a toy in her crib but that doesn't seem to make a difference.  She talks to the bars on the crib if there is no toy.

Thankfully, her lack of napping doesn't seem to bother her nighttime sleep.  We are all over the map there too!  Nah, there is more predictability there. She usually is down for the night between 8 and 9 and will sleep until 7ish in the morning.  Of course, I typically nurse her a time or two in  between but she sleeps for good chunks of time at night.  Sometimes she'll go 3 hours and then 5 hours or maybe 5 and then 3 hours or 4 and 4 or 4 and 3.  It's like a grab bag - you never know what you are going to get.

She always wakes up happy.  Whether it's in the morning or after a nap.  She's smiley and pleasant to be around so I'm pretty sure she's getting enough sleep.

For the record, we really don't care either way about the charts.  Yet.  :)  She's right where we think she should be for both.  She's above AND below the average depending on what we are talking about.

Anyway, just thought I'd catch everybody up on her sleeping habits since that is typically a question we get.  I usually answer that she's sleeping well because it works for us and its working for her.

Here's a picture of a recent nap.  I found out the hard way after snapping this picture that she wasn't really asleep.  She stirred when she heard the camera shutter.  oops.  Guess I won't be taking pictures of a sleeping baby anymore.