Nap Time Horror

When we found out I was pregnant last year, my husband and I decided that he should hold off on taking as much vacation time as possible until the baby was born. This proved to be immensely useful to us when my son was born, as I was in the hospital for an entire week, and of course, my husband didn't want to leave me or my son for even a minute. He still had another week left to take though, so we decided to wait and see. In my mind, we were waiting to see if I would get sick and thus need him to be home. As he tells me now, he was waiting for me to have a nervous breakdown. Turns out we were both wrong, and neither thing happened(though I think there were some weeks when it was pretty close to the breakdown).

So last week was the week we decided my husband would take. There were a couple of reasons we decided to do it. My husband works outside, and December is freezing and also his busiest month. Thus, it makes sense that he would like time off then. But the main reason was our son's naps. Our son is an awesome nighttime sleeper. It is a rare night he doesn't sleep 10 hours straight, and it's been like that for quite a while-though it does change with vaccinations, teething, etc. But for some reason, he would not nap anywhere but on me.

He has no problem whatsoever with sleeping in his crib at night. He goes down without a peep. Added to that, sometimes he wakes up in the night and we can hear him babbling to himself, and then eventually he puts himself back to sleep. But ever since he was born, he would not nap anywhere. Believe me, we tried. We tried a bassinet, a bouncer, a swing, his crib. We even tried the floor(he can play on it, why can't he sleep on it, right?) He would scream and scream and scream. And for the first while, I tried. I really did. But I was so sleep deprived and freaked out, and I ended up crying constantly and refusing to do it. So I just held him. All day long. So when discussing my husband's vacation time, we decided between the two of us, we could crack this nap problem. So we started the Friday afternoon of my husband's last day of work. The first 24 hours included long bouts of sobbing on mine and the baby's part, yelling on both of our parts, screaming on his, and exhaustion with all three of us. It was one of the worst days of my life. And the next day was no better-worse if anything. Now he wasn't sleeping at night, and he was napping 10 times a day, because of how little he was actually sleeping at his nap times.

"Little old me? I would never refuse to nap!"

And then, we could see the light at the end of the tunnel. On the third day, he actually slept in his crib. For 10 minutes, but it was at least some improvement. And by the end of the week, we were so happy with ourselves. He slept every nap time in his crib for approximately 30-45 minutes. Which isn't long enough, as he was still seeming tired after, but we figured, he will settle into sleeping in there and eventually will start to sleep longer.

So when my husband went back to work on this Monday, I gave myself a pep talk. I can stick to the nap schedule! I can do this! And the first nap went beautifully. I rocked him for approximately 30 seconds, and then into his crib, and he slept for 45 minutes. I was so smug. I cleaned the kitchen while he slept, got so much done. 'This is the life!" I told myself. And then the tooth came.

See, I had been telling everyone for MONTHS that my son was teething. He would drool and drool and drool and bite EVERYTHING around him. And no one but my husband believed me. Even our doctor told me I was crazy because he was only 9 weeks at the time and that apparently is way to early to start teething. But I knew. And lo and behold, after his nap on Monday morning, my son woke up screaming bloody murder. I ran in there, horrified, and there, in his screaming, open mouth was a tiny white tooth on the bottom. He then proceeded to scream for the next 6 hours. I am not joking. My husband had the WORST day at work, and then came home to a stressed out wife, and an angry baby. And he refused to go in his crib again. And the next day as well. We had reverted to the first weeks-both me and Clark crying and exhausted. I couldn't believe that all that work my husband and I had put into fixing his bad habit had been ruined by this tiny tooth! Seriously, what are the chances on that? Why couldn't that tooth just wait a couple more weeks until he was completely in his routine?

So for now, back to the nap time horror show for me. Hopefully he gets this worked out, otherwise as soon as January hits, my husband is going to end up taking more vacation...