Riding It Out

Today was much better! Our ants seem to be gone (FINALLY), Ayden and I had a decent night's sleep and I got all of my To Do's crossed off my list. I always like to put the house together on Fridays so we have a clean slate to trash over the weekend.  When David got home and commented on how nice everything looked I went all FlyLady on him :).  I said, "Our main goal this weekend is to keep the "do it now" mentality.  For instance, this means that when we come in with an armload of bags, we take the time right then to unload them and put everything away, no matter how tired we are (we usually leave them strewn about for me to take care of on Mondays).  He agreed to join me in the effort so we'll see how it goes! 

Along with putting the house back together, Ayden and I got in some great floor time!  This included playing with his new favorite toy for a while:

He LOVES his Zany Zoo!

I also took the time to take his afternoon nap with him.  The first half for him was in the Ergo while I did a little cleaning but then I transferred him to our bed and napped with him for about a half hour.  It seems that these days the only way to get him to nap for longer than 20-30 minutes is to take it with him.  I'm a little torn between teaching him to nap on his own and making sure he gets the rest his little body needs to develop.  The compromise is working on independent napping during his morning nap and then either wearing him or napping with him for his afternoon nap. The best of both worlds perhaps? Either that or completely confusing him... 

Ayden's naps were all over the place again today so I got out my trusty copy of The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems to see if I could find any answers.  As it turns out, there was a whole section on "riding out the inconsistencies" around the sixth month.  Because there is a crazy jump in development during this time, both mentally and physically, they are (and therefore their sleep is) all over the place.  Reading this made me feel better.  I NEED TO STOP STRESSING! I just need to stay as consistent as I can for him and once he gets through this phase, he'll fall back into his routine (until he hits the next phase).  

A few months ago I wrote a post to my pregnant self and it was filled with things like, "stop worrying" and "all the effort you're putting in will pay off," etc.  As I find my way through this first year of motherhood, I need to make sure that I don't get too caught up in worrying or over-analyzing and make sure that I enjoy it!  I will keep working towards our goals but he is new at life, David and I are new at parenthood, and we are all on this wild and wonderful adventure together. 

~Sarah