In common with all the other mums whose babies didn't sleep much during the day, I also hated the advice "sleep when they sleep". It has taken us six months to establish a pattern of daytime naps which has amounted to one hour in the morning and another hour after lunch. I listen with envy as my antenatal group describe waking their babies from a two hour nap.
It was really hard work to establish this pattern, especially as my daughter is a light sleeper (this morning she woke up because I walked down the stairs). She's such a light sleeper that we have to unplug the phone.
At new year, we had friends to stay, with their two very noisy children. Our house is relatively large, but they could be heard bellowing in all corners of the place and my daughter was unable to take her usual naps. Add to equation that my friend's husband actually walked upstairs to bed at 1am giving us all an impression of "the way our son cries when he's over-tired" (can you believe he did this right outside her door?) and you see the beginnings of a problem.
Then on tuesday I went back to work and my daughter had very poor sleep at the childminder's house, due to the noise. She was cranky all day and I got the impression they were glad to wave her off at 4pm. She took four naps that day; two of them out in a buggy.
Since then, her daytime nap routine has gone out of the window. She's having 20 mins in the morning and about 40 mins in the afternoon. She's rubbing her eyes all day long but won't go back to bed without a fight (the 40 mins this afternoon was achieved after 35 mins crying - usually goes down fine).
She's doing my head in, and I'm really fed up that our months of concerted efforts have seemingly gone to waste.
Can anyone reassure me that this will get better? Do you think she's just settling in? I also think she's teething
One of the problems seems to be that the childminder puts her for a sleep at 9.30am, which is about 45 mins later than I would put her down (especially if she has woken up very early). She knows what my routine at home is, and I appreciate that my baby has to fit in with her, but I think she's overtired. It's early days in the relationship with my childminder so I don't want to pick up on things I think she's getting wrong.
My husband says it's not our problem. He says we've paid the childminder to take care of her and if she's cranky, it's up to the childminder to sort it out and work out how to improve it. I suppose he's right, but it's buggered up a great routine and I'm pissed off.