1. Wake her up if she's not already awake by 7:00 a.m.
2. Only let her nap for two hours.
3. Do everything humanly possible to wear her out between her nap and bedtime.
The first won't be hard. The second might kill me. I use every second of naptime, people. But if it helps her get to sleep before 8 p.m., then I suppose it's worth it. I also need my evening free time. I forget how I ever got things done with an infant who didn't go down for the night until 11 p.m. Oh, that's right...she was immobile. There was the swing, the bouncer, the floor, even the sling. Of course, those were the days of two or three nighttime feedings too, so I guess it's all a trade-off.
As long as the weather holds out, the wearing-her-out part should be easy enough. We have enjoyed lots of outdoor time with the landscaping projects recently. Olivia enjoys digging in the mulch with whatever garden tool I allow her to play with at the moment. Note to self: Buy some plastic garden tools. I'm seriously worried that she's going to take an eye out while running across the yard with a garden spade.
Speaking of, I thought I would explain what I did with my 3-hour nap window yesterday.
This is our front landscaping, as it looked last Spring. The landscaping around our house is a multi-year project that we've done on our own, with the help of some family. Our driveway bends out like this on both sides, so we have another "arm" of irises on the other side (my husband calls these our "Arms of Bernini").The inside row pictured here are all irises. The outside (near the grass) row are daylilies. The daylilies are beautiful and bloom through June and some of July. Since they are different varieties, they bloom at different times.
See? Pretty! This picture was taken the year we planted them.
We haven't seen them bloom since. The deer eat off the blooms before we get a chance to see them at all.
Since the deer hate the irises and they make such pretty flowers, we decided to take out all the daylilies and split the irises up to fill in the spaces where the daylilies were. So that was what I did yesterday.
The daylilies are planted in temporary pots for now, and we are planning to make a fenced-in raised garden for them in the backyard. In the meantime, the deer continue to munch on the leaves. It's maddening.
Today's outdoor project is a little more Olivia-friendly. When she gets up, we will go to the backyard and pick up sticks and other yard waste. She likes to carry the bucket around and fill it with things and then dump them out. Not very productive, but it keeps her entertained.
1 comment:
Since the cold began, I haven't been able to leave the room during naptime because she keeps waking herself up. If I am right there, I can get her back to sleep quick, but if I wait too long, she's up for good and then a miserable sleep deprived thing.
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