Of toddlers and (very long) naps

Ever since her waking world began, Aria has sleeping issues.

No, make that, ever since in utero, Aria had sleeping issues — when she used to rock my whole body in the middle of the morning with her strong kicks and punches.

In the past two years, you could only count the times she slept on her own without having to nurse. With much excitement, I tweeted, took pics, and posted on Facebook those few precious times that she slept without the aid of the “dede!” We achieved this by rocking her, singing to her, tapping her thighs. But it’s hit or miss, and always, a miss.

As expected, her schedule is erratic during daytime. Generally she sleeps well in the evening, as long as I’m beside her for easy boob access. Sometimes she takes one morning nap of about 1 hour, then another hour of nap in the afternoon. Last month, her pattern is four to five hour naps. Yes, as long as FIVE HOURS! Imagine what time she sleeps in the evening!

Poor Nonna (my mom), who sacrifices carrying sleepyhead Aria just to make her nap as long as she wants.

The past days, she naps for no more than two hours. The shortest is about 30 minutes. If this is the case, she can sleep early, maybe around 9 or 10 PM. We could notice that she exhausts her energies first by trying to be awake and play with us until she feels really really sleepy. The vampire Aria wakes up as early as we do–at 6 AM! Sleep deprived is she, nevertheless she’s still full of energy all the time.

But this week is a different story. Few days back, my mom called me at work to tell me that Aria napped for 45 minutes. My husband came home earlier and texted Aria slept–with her nightgown already–at 6:30 PM! I came home from grocery at 9PM and she’s still asleep. My arrival was just in time for her to be half awake and look for the “dede.” So I change to my night clothes and laid down beside her to nurse–switching boob every two seconds! I hope she doesn’t wake up way too early!

Should I cut the long naps, then? My only worry is that Aria is so unpredictably cranky when she doesn’t get a good sleep, or if she is disturbed by some tiny sound. Her bionic ears are so bionic that she wakes up when we’re whispering, or when a fork moves. I pity her when she got her deep sleep and when she’s in the REM stage, even a small noise wakes her up. She ends up just crying and crying and waking up already.

One more thing is night nursing. We still aren’t successful with this. But should we really cut the night nursing at this stage? Me and my husband says not yet but some reading materials say otherwise. Surprisingly, there are nights when she asks for fresh milk instead of mommy’s milk, so we give her before sleeping.

How about you, mommies, do you sleep train? How do you do it?

~ Touringkitty