Tiny Turtle Hatchlings

[Princess Morripov]

They are all different though aren’t they? Biggie sleeps for about 2-2.5 hours in the morning and 1.5-2 hours in the afternoon and will still go to sleep around 6.30pm.

Tupac was similar but more 2 x 1.5hr sleeps, he dropped down to one nap quite late (18 months) and still likes a nap now but I try and limit it to a couple of times a week otherwise he starts waking early

I haven’t done anything particularly special in terms of daytime nap routine though, I just put him down when he is tired (scratches the back of his head) and let him sleep as long as he wants. Sometimes if he’s had a massive morning sleep (3 hours) he will only do 1 hour in the afternoon. It does help being at home though as although he naps in the pram, he wouldn’t sleep that long if we went for a walk, so we just don’t go out

[Leap]

That’s amazing! Hop has really clear tiredness cues too but she only ever napped over 30 minutes maybe once a week, and I’ve never managed to link those times to anything. I have sort of been convinced her short sleep cycle is related to her food intake, but I know in reality if she was good at food but hadn’t started crawling yet it would be that, just whatever I think is missing.

[Princess Morripov]

Both my boys went through a phase (after the lovely newborn sleeping stage ) where they had say 4 x 25 minute naps a day (which was grim ) and then it just naturally changed into 2 long naps and a short nap, and then onto the 2 long naps, and then eventually onto 1 nap.

The only thing I would/did do is keep track to a certain extent how long they’ve been awake to work out whether they are due a nap, so in the early days it was clear they couldn’t do more than 1-1.5 hours between sleeps, whereas now with Biggie I’d say it’s 2.5-3 hours between naps, so sometimes I’ll put him down even if he isn’t scratching the back of his head because I know he will need a nap.

But ultimately I think they do what they want to do :disclaimer:

[Leap]

Oh Oh well that’s comforting in a way. I’ve logged all her naps, feeds and nappies since she was about 8 weeks, learned her sleep signals and wake windows, googled and tried various resettling techniques and also extracted all the data to excel to look for further clues and patterns and she would still only do 30 mins per nap, so I can accept it’s not something I could’ve reached on our own.

My gold standard for naps was always SIL and I wasn’t willing to do Gina Ford, and my worst case scenario was my lovely friend whose baby just never napped, only the odd cat nap after swimming but otherwise just a bubbly burst of adrenaline from morning till night. By contrast our 3 x 30 mins per day seemed blissful, especially before lockdown when it was just me all day.

[Kenickie]

I think I need to send mine up to North Wales to get sorted out!

We didn't even have that much of a sleepy newborn phase, and they were rarely asleep at the same time either.

I agree that having a guide is useful as there's so much conflicting information.

I actually can't imagine how life changing it would be if they both did two hours in the morning and afternoon and then slept all night. It would be like being child free again. ;) So I guess maybe I do need to work on things. It's been getting better though, as previously they just wouldn't nap at all unless they were in a pushchair out for a walk. Especially Topsy-even on a person she'd often just do five minutes and then be awake again, raring to go. So at least now I know they can nap on me for a decent time.

A really stupid question- how do you wake them up if you're doing that? I had a bad night last night so went back to bed at about half nine, instructing P that they needed sleep too. Apparently they wouldn't nap at all, so Tim is asleep now when he should be eating lunch. He fell asleep on me so I put him in the cot which would normally wake him, the room is bright and I've been making noise but he's determinedly still dozing. I don't want to do anything too jarring but all the stuff which would wake him if I wanted him asleep is failing now I want him awake!

[Leap]

Look at him KO’d there This was the other way I realised my friend was doing something different - she kept posting very lovely but perplexing (to me) videos on Instagram of her cooing “it’s time to wake up, baby” while he was in shot sleeping soundly. I kept shoving them in C’s face saying WHY would she do this?!

Anyway, Hop wakes as soon as we open her door, but her G sounds a lot like Tim as the videos show a bright room so I’m sure she’s already opened curtains and called his name, and it’s only then she will get a bit closer and louder and gently rub his tummy until comes to.

[Kenickie]

It's the only time he's ever done it so maybe I need to only ever put him down at an inconvenient time.

Rubbing his tummy is a good idea. He woke up by himself about ten minutes after I posted as I just decided to leave him to it in the end.

[Rhodonite]

Look at him!

I have no helpful advice on sleep! Conchie naps for as long as J will let him, which isn't very long at all sometimes!

[Kenickie]

Awww, does J just want him to wake up and play?

[Rhodonite]

Awww, does J just want him to wake up and play?

Either to play or because he's just so noisy! Thankfully Conchie doesn't seem to mind too much, because there's never any tears.

It's funny seeing them together though. Conchie definitely knows what he wants now and gets really angry if J has something he wants!

[Leap]

Awww, does J just want him to wake up and play?

Either to play or because he's just so noisy! Thankfully Conchie doesn't seem to mind too much, because there's never any tears.

It's funny seeing them together though. Conchie definitely knows what he wants now and gets really angry if J has something he wants!

I said to C recently I suddenly realise the babies with older siblings must really benefit from a) seeing someone else do things they can copy, and b) having someone around who has far higher expectations What’s the age difference between them again?

I am in full soppy mode this week as it’s Hop’s birthday on Sunday I keep thinking (in a good way) about how utterly clueless we were this time last year, and how much we’ve learned in that time. We sat for ages after dinner last night talking about her birth and choosing her name and her first visitors, and it was so lovely. I don’t feel like the year went fast or slow, I think we earned every passing minute

We had planned/expected to have her birthday just the 3 of us, but with the changes and with the agreement of our families we are going to bend the rules just a bit to have the grandparents and my brother over in the garden, socially distantly for an hour or so each over Saturday and Sunday (so 2 households per day instead of 1). Due to how much my mum dislikes my stepmum it actually makes celebrating the birthday much easier than it otherwise would’ve been and is pretty close to what we would’ve chosen to do if things were normal. I’d ordered approximately a million balloons when I thought it would just be the 3 of us so they’re still coming, and I’m hoping to do a photo collage wall thing if the pictures arrive on time.

[Kenickie]

That sounds like a lovely birthday celebration!

I feel like time has flown by as I can't believe I've been off work for over nine months now. It feels like an age ago that they were properly tiny. This doesn't mean that it's not been a slog a lot of the time, I think a lot of days being just about survival has been why it feels like it's gone so fast.

When are you back in work? How are you feeling about it?

Also, if I can bore on about routines again, what do you do when they're supposed to be having a two hour nap and they wake after half an hour? Keep trying to get them back to sleep or give up?

[Kenickie]

So far today our nap 'routine' has been:
9:30 go for a walk to try and get them to sleep. Both asleep at about 9:45, Topsy woke up ten minutes later, Tim after about half an hour
1:30 nap in cot. Topsy asleep after about five minutes (part of which was spent in actual loud screaming), Tim asleep after fifteen minutes of rolling around and whingy crying.
2:11 Topsy awake. Tried to get her back to sleep. Eventually fed and cuddled her
2:50 Tim awake and properly crying. Fed him after a bit, put Topsy back in cot so she didn't roll off the bed and she finally fell back asleep at 3:05. Tim was awake for a bit and now he's back asleep. So I guess I should wake them as the two hour window has gone even though Topsy has only had an hour or so of actual sleep? I feel like I might just leave them for a bit though, it feels a bit mean to wake her if she needs the sleep.

[F'Artiste]

I’d be letting her sleep if only so you could have a break.

Are either teething or going through a sleep regression? I used to do the same with A2, and found a text earlier today lamenting about spending an hour getting him to nap for only thirty minutes. I think I’d probably battle through a bit if it had been a long time since the last nap but only because A2 was/is utterly foul if he hasn’t had a nap.

[Kenickie]

Thanks. They're definitely teething! Tim has a tooth poking through at the bottom, Topsy no visible evidence yet though. Not sure if it's a sleep regression or just the heat bit they've been terrible at night recently.

She's woken, so we opened the curtains, sang a couple of songs but Tim is still asleep. I've taken her down to play and have left him for now.

Eta: I went back up and woke him by picking him up as our monitor hasn't arrived yet and I felt worried about him being up there alone. :sap:

[Leap]

I never had any luck getting Hop back to sleep after a 30 min wake up, absolutely nothing worked (I am figuratively sitting on my hands to stop from defensively listing everything I tried ) but I think Beatrix has success with this. Edit: ive been teyping this so long I see you’ve posted already

Our no. 1 pain point with 30 min naps was the evening sleep - for months we would do bath and bed routine and she would go off to sleep like a dream, but then wake up like a timer had been set after 30 minutes and be awake for 2 hours. No. Matter. What. It’s been the most pronounced improvement since we did the routine, but I don’t know which of the many changes we made was the one that actually fixed it. The first few nights she’d twitch at 30 mins or even cry, but then roll over and go back to sleep, so completely different from before with no influence or intervention from us.

I find out tomorrow what my return date is and whether it will be WFH etc. I thought I’d feel a lot more bereft, but I think lockdown has really helped in that way that I feel like the last few months have been really solid, happy quality time with her because I wasn’t desperately counting down to C coming home on tough days, or having time slip away with lots of plans and distractions. I’m actively looking forward to Hop getting to spend more time with her grandparents, and the likelihood is that I’ll get to be very close by for it all which is just a gift in all of this. And of course, 3 days isn’t very much at all. I’ve also spoken to a lot of work friends recently and the word is that I am sorely missed (!) which is nice to hear and gives me a nice boost and reminder that I’m not just going back for financial reasons.

What’s your plan for work now, has it changed any? And if Pov is here how has it been going? A work friend was supposed to start back last week, but they also messed up her access and she had a bonus paid week off

[Kenickie]

I think I might try feeding earlier next time then.

That's great that the routine has worked so well for you, Leap. It's too early to tell for us yet but fingers crossed.

That's really nice that you feel positive about going back to work, and it's lovely that you've really been missed.

I'm still not sure what I'm doing. I think I'm going to end up saying that I can either do one or two (need to decide this bit but I think it'll have to be two) days a week in London, and so I can either cut down to one or two days full stop, or I can do more than that of they're happy for me to have some fixed WFH days (I'll also suggest we could do a trial of this to start). I'm hoping they'll agree to the fixed WFH but when I mooted this with my boss she wasn't positive, despite the last few months obviously showing just how much can be done from home. One thing that might work in my favour is that there's a recruitment freeze because of budget issues, so if I drop down to two days a week they might not be allowed to recruit anyone to cover the other three days, so they might think that having me do some time WFH is better than not having anyone at all. If they do decide that I can only do the amount of days I can do from London then I'm going to make a huge effort not to work outside of that as if they're going to be arses about it, it makes me really resent all the stuff I do over and above my actual hours. And I'll probably start looking elsewhere, but I think the recruitment situation will be the same across the sector so there might not be anything for a while.

[Kenickie]

I know this is boring for everyone else but just for my own records:
Morning nap -both had half an hour then woke up and fed. Topsy went to sleep quicker so the wake up and feed was slightly staggered so perfect.
Afternoon-both had half an hour, Topsy woke up and fed and then Tim did the same. Then they took over an hour to get back to sleep again.

I honestly don't know what to do when the routine says they need a two hour nap and it becomes such a battle and effort to get them to do it. I guess I keep persisting for a week or so and then just go back to letting them do what they want as at least that's less stressful.

[Kenickie]

The baby monitor arrived today, so look! They are upstairs on their own, asleep, and I am downstairs! :toot:

[F'Artiste]

Oh! . Look at those chunky arms and legs. Proper baby brood here. And enjoy every second of that freedom Ken. It’s so hard, and unrelenting at times, especially when your baby isn’t following a routine. You’re honestly doing so well (even if it doesn’t always feel that way).