sleep, little one

We tried a new thing today. For what seems like forever, the Cuteness has been having two naps a day. When he was really itty bitty and brand new (like in the above picture - I think he was about 5 days old there), nap times were kind of a hit and miss, do-whatever-works type of thing. Then, somewhere along the road, Annemarie (who I seem to mention often on this blog) lent me a book on sleep patterns and training for babies. It suggested using a 2-3-4 nap schedule. This is how it goes:

• Two hours after your baby gets up for the day (let's assume that's generally around 7:00 AM), put him down for his first nap - which would be 9:00. Do it even if he doesn't seem tired. More often than not, babies need sleep before they seem like they need it.
• Three hours after this nap ends, put him down for his second nap. Let's say he naps until 10:30. That would make the next nap time 1:30. 
• Four hours after this nap, put him down for the night. When Judah was on this schedule, he would often sleep from 1:30 to 3:00, which made for a perfect 7:00 bed time. 

Once I had established Judah's average wake-up time and nap length,  I made 9:30 & 1:30 his routine nap times and consistently put him to bed at 7:00, even if it did not perfectly match the 2-3-4 schedule. He's been following this schedule for at least 10 months.

Until a few days ago, that is. It had gotten to the point that I smugly thought, My baby will always nap two times a day. He just needs his sleep that much. And then began the excessively long periods of "falling asleep". We're talking (at most) two hours. He'd never get angry. He would just happily roll around in his crib while amusing himself by: kicking the wall, escaping his clothes (and occasionally his diapers), befriending Bannister the Bunny, and talking nonsense. Adorable nonsense, that is. Then he would fall asleep. It was the same for bedtime, which has never been an issue to establish prior to this.

He was still having two naps a day and we were still putting him to bed at 7:00, but the amount of time he was spending in his crib (albeit happily) was a bit outrageous. The kid's gotta have time to be a kid, right?!

Enter the death of a nap. With a bit of a mournful heart, we kept Judah up until 1:00 today (which was surprisingly easy to do). For the first time in a week, he went to sleep immediately after I had closed the door. It wasn't a very long nap, but I'm fairly certain it was of as much use as the dawdling, drawn-out ones he's been having this week. Then, when bedtime came, he again went to sleep without so much as a peep. At 7:00! 

Victory! 

Now I'm the one that will need time to adjust to this whole one-nap-a-day thing. For me that means I have less time to do stuff. I'm going to have to decide whether napping or housework is more necessary. 

*blinks*

I will most definitely be napping.