Deviled Egg Chicks
This is a cute way to make deviled eggs that your kids will love to eat. Each deviled egg is made into a little chick hatching from a shell. Super easy and super cute!!! Click on the "crafts" link for more fun and free craft ideas.
CLICK HERE FOR DEVILED EGG CRAFT
27.3.12
19.3.12
No MORE Napping
Well it has been a hectic two weeks with my LO. About two weeks ago I finally decided to cut out her third nap. You know the one, the late evening nap usually somewhere between 5-6pm that lasts only about 45 minutes max. At first I was excited as she never really went down well for this nap and selfishly I could not wait to have more time in the evening and actually go out for dinner at a normal hour (instead of late night or early-bird special).
Day one I prepared myself for some crying. She napped well for her first two naps 1 1/2 - 2 hours a piece. Then came 5:30pm, the time I would be getting ready to put her down for her evening catnap. She was getting tired (having been awake 2 1/2 hours) and rubbing her eyes. Playing independently was not going to happen so I resorted to walking around the home holding her to stall and "use up" some time. We looked in the pantry, talked to ourselves in front of the mirror and took a walk in the backyard. She was BEAT and it had only been 20 minutes. I knew I needed to nurse her and then try and do some kind of nighttime routine in order to help her know it is bedtime not naptime. I went to the back room to feed. I had the lights dimmed to set a calm ambiance and light music on. She did not care.....she whined/whimpered the entire feed and did not feed well. I gave her a mini-bath (bad idea) and then put her down. In total she was awake 3 hours and 20 minutes (instead of her normal 2 hours and 30 minutes) and her bedtime moved from 8:30 all the way up to 6:20pm.
I wondered if the change in her bedtime would backfire and if she would wake early in the middle of the night. She did not HORRAY!!!! BUUUUUTTT I did not escape totally scott-free. For the past week her daytime sleep has been off. Her normal daily naps began to shorted to 45 minutes to an hour and ten minutes. This really messed with her active time as at each active time she was up much longer. She did not like this but if I put her down for her next nap early her bedtime would have been 5:30pm (which is CRAZY). My other option was to go back to 3 naps again but that was not ideal either. I could not figure out what to do and really thought I just needed to give up the whole dropped nap thing. Then it occurred to me....she was sleeping too much at night. I reflected back on my reading from Secrets of a Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg and Dr. Ferber's book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems and remembered that they both noted that a 6 month old needed approx. 13-15 hours of sleep total. No wonder she did not want to nap during the day. With her new bedtime she was getting about 14 hours of this total sleep time at night. This sounds in theory like an okay situation but in reality what I had was a baby who was not very well rested during the day and would get fussy quite easily. I knew what I needed to do. I knew what I had to do. I had to keep her awake a little more at night to create a later bedtime AND I had to get her up a little earlier in the morning (good-bye 8:00am wake time).
I started by keeping her up only 15 minutes more at night and I also stretched each daily active time by about 10 minutes as well. I also woke her at 7am to be sure she was not getting too much sleep at night. TA-DA...within two days, problem solved. I kept extending her bedtime by about 5 -10 minutes a day until she finally got to a 8:15ish bedtime. All is well and naps are restored!!! :-) Happy Baby= Happy Mommy
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FIXING YOUR BABY'S NAP/SLEEP PROBLEMS CLICK ON THE "SLEEPING" TAB ON THE RIGHT!!!!
Day one I prepared myself for some crying. She napped well for her first two naps 1 1/2 - 2 hours a piece. Then came 5:30pm, the time I would be getting ready to put her down for her evening catnap. She was getting tired (having been awake 2 1/2 hours) and rubbing her eyes. Playing independently was not going to happen so I resorted to walking around the home holding her to stall and "use up" some time. We looked in the pantry, talked to ourselves in front of the mirror and took a walk in the backyard. She was BEAT and it had only been 20 minutes. I knew I needed to nurse her and then try and do some kind of nighttime routine in order to help her know it is bedtime not naptime. I went to the back room to feed. I had the lights dimmed to set a calm ambiance and light music on. She did not care.....she whined/whimpered the entire feed and did not feed well. I gave her a mini-bath (bad idea) and then put her down. In total she was awake 3 hours and 20 minutes (instead of her normal 2 hours and 30 minutes) and her bedtime moved from 8:30 all the way up to 6:20pm.
I wondered if the change in her bedtime would backfire and if she would wake early in the middle of the night. She did not HORRAY!!!! BUUUUUTTT I did not escape totally scott-free. For the past week her daytime sleep has been off. Her normal daily naps began to shorted to 45 minutes to an hour and ten minutes. This really messed with her active time as at each active time she was up much longer. She did not like this but if I put her down for her next nap early her bedtime would have been 5:30pm (which is CRAZY). My other option was to go back to 3 naps again but that was not ideal either. I could not figure out what to do and really thought I just needed to give up the whole dropped nap thing. Then it occurred to me....she was sleeping too much at night. I reflected back on my reading from Secrets of a Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg and Dr. Ferber's book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems and remembered that they both noted that a 6 month old needed approx. 13-15 hours of sleep total. No wonder she did not want to nap during the day. With her new bedtime she was getting about 14 hours of this total sleep time at night. This sounds in theory like an okay situation but in reality what I had was a baby who was not very well rested during the day and would get fussy quite easily. I knew what I needed to do. I knew what I had to do. I had to keep her awake a little more at night to create a later bedtime AND I had to get her up a little earlier in the morning (good-bye 8:00am wake time).
I started by keeping her up only 15 minutes more at night and I also stretched each daily active time by about 10 minutes as well. I also woke her at 7am to be sure she was not getting too much sleep at night. TA-DA...within two days, problem solved. I kept extending her bedtime by about 5 -10 minutes a day until she finally got to a 8:15ish bedtime. All is well and naps are restored!!! :-) Happy Baby= Happy Mommy
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FIXING YOUR BABY'S NAP/SLEEP PROBLEMS CLICK ON THE "SLEEPING" TAB ON THE RIGHT!!!!
9.3.12
E.A.S.Y Routine
If you are looking for information regarding putting your LO on an E.A.S.Y. routine, then click on the "sleeping" tab on the right side of this page. It has a ton of information regarding putting your baby on an E.A.S.Y. routine and also includes some sample routines/schedules.
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