well, I was bored late last night and this morning so I decided to get everything set up and cute-looking so I'm officially ready to blog here and not at my old site. exciting, huh?
I feel like Satan is really trying to get to me right now. and he's using Audrey. I know that sounds bad, but let me explain. Audrey is an amazing sleeper. Really. she usually falls asleep without crying and takes 3 naps a day right now and sleeps at least 10 hours each night. She is such a happy baby, but she needs the sleep to be so happy. The problem is, though, that if she's in a new place where there's lots of new things to look at or it's very loud or there are lots of people around, she doesn't sleep as well. Now to the problem with Satan: Audrey does not nap at church or church events. She has napped other places, but, consistently does not sleep at church.
When it's my week to sing on the worship team, we are at church for 5 hours (sometimes longer if we have small group right after church) and she really needs a nap during that time. The room she's supposed to sleep in the church nursery is bright and right next to the check-in table, so all of the kids that don't want to leave their parents are about 6 feet from her crying and screaming. So she wakes up, or else never falls asleep. So the workers (bless their hearts, because I really don't know what we would do without them) go and get her and so she's surrounded by new toys and people and she thinks it's playtime! I've heard that most babies don't sleep well in church nurseries, but most babies are usually only there 1 1/2 to 2 hours at the most, so it isn't that big of a deal. Not that I don't sympathize with those moms, too... We are in the process of remodeling our church and next week the nursery will be somewhere new. I'm curious to see where the babies will be sleeping. :)
Tuesday mornings I'm in a Bible study at church and it's during the time of her first nap of the day, which is the most important nap. I knew this when I signed up for it, but I decided that it was time to get out and get back into a Bible study and we would just see how things went. Yesterday was horrible!!!!! She took about a 15 minute nap was awake for another 2 hours and then fell asleep again about 2 mintues before the Bible study was over, so she basically skipped her first nap of the day. The rest of the day was completely off. She was not her usual happy self. She was falling asleep while she was eating. She wanted me to hold her and play with her all day. I can usually lay her down on a blanket and she'll entertain herself for 20 mintues. Not yesterday.
The whole point of this is that I LOVE singing on the worship team at church and I really want to be involved in the Bible study. and I'm NOT going to give those things up. It just seems like 2 of the things I look forward to the most each week are becoming the hardest because I pretty much know that the rest of the day (every Sunday and Tuesday) is going to be crazy. I'm not going to let Satan win. I am still going to sing and be involved in Bible study and I'll just keep praying and hoping that Audrey will eventually be able to nap at church. The Bible study is short-term, only 7 weeks, so it will be over before I know it. but I'm going to keep singing for a long time, hopefully.
Am I crazy or overreacting? Do all moms go through this with their kids in the nursery? Is it too much to expect that my child be able to take a nap at church? She naps other places, why not at church? aaahhhh!!!!
any advice besides praying?
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11 comments:
just want to share the best advice i have gotten/still get when things are hard..."it's a phase!" meaning, there might not be anything you can do except wait it out, but there's hope! :) hopefully she'll eventually be able to tune noise/lights out at nursery. is there anywhere else she could nap...a quieter/dimmer room where tyson or someone else can stand guard while you sing? would she sleep in a swing in the nursery or at the study? calvin always needed a swing away from home to sleep more than 10 minutes.
on those days where her routine is thrown off, just go with it :) cause what else can ya do? my kids often miss meals because they're in desperate need of sleep...then they make up for it afterward and if bedtime is still at a fairly normal time, everything's back to normal the next day.
other ideas... do you live near church? can tyson or someone else take her home for a nap and bring her back?
thanks for the advice...Tyson plays the guitar almost every week so that won't work. I've thought about puting her in another room, but with all the renovating, that's not really possible right now. I think "it's just a phase" is true...this too shall pass. :)
If you can try bringing a sound machine, just to help block out the noise. Caden sleeps with one whenever he is sleeping somewhere other then his bed and it seems to help keep things at a "normal" noise level.
Why, hello there!
Sorry you are finding it hard to get to do your "churchy" things without sacrificing Audrey's naps. What a pickle. I have no real advice except to keep on going, and maybe she'll learn to adjust to the newer places, times, people, etc. Hopefully.....!
Oh, and I think you are now supposed to "follow" people's blogs like we did on Xanga when you would "subscribe" to people's sites. I somehow managed to figure out how to now "follow" your blog.....such a new world! :)
Hi! I went to school with Tyson and Shannon! I am so excited to find your site! You and Tyson have an adorable little girl! I have a little guy who is 7 months and I understand the need for the naps!
Laura Hemphill (Goldsberry)
Also I love your background! How did you get it?
Oh Lisa, I do totally understand. We used to be at church in Maine from 8 to 1 and it was SO hard for our boys when they were that small. We "trained" our kids to go to sleep without being held, which always made it even worse b/c everyone just kept trying to hold them, pat them, rock them to sleep...which OF course didn't work and actually just made which ever baby boy TICKED off. Sundays were always just our "totally-off-of-the-normal-schedule days", which turned out to work out okay once I just went with it! I would always just feed on schedule on Sundays and then sleep time was never normal...often ALL of us would just crash as soon as we got home from church and ate. Heck, we still do that :) Often, if which ever baby was due to eat at noonish, after he would eat, he would just sleep until the next feeding time b/c he had missed nap #1. Hang in there b/c you're right, I'm sure Satan is just trying to discourage you. And you're right that Tuesdays will go fast, and you'll figure it out just in time to start the NEXT Tuesday morning bible study! After all, you will probably continue to do a morning bible study b/c that's what stay-at-home moms do :)
Margo, that's exactly what we did with Audrey...we trained her to fall asleep on her own, but like you know, too, that doesn't happen in the nursery.
I've been keeping her feeding schedule the same and just letting her nap whenever she can on those days, so I'll just keep doing that! thanks for the encouragement!
I am back in the nursery starting next month so I will try to run off anyone that goes in to pick up Audrey--sometimes I am successful and sometimes they get her before I know it. It is kind of funny to watch the nursery workers--it is like torture for them to have a baby in a bed that isn't totally asleep. I kind of wonder where they are going to put the babies to sleep too--we will see:)
I have the same issue with Alayna. Margo's right. Go with the flow and let her catch up on the next nap. there was a noise machine in the sleeping room (i put it in there when Pierce was a baby) but I don't think they every use it. Heather might know.
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