Napping is for suckers

Penelope likes to keep us on our toes. I was starting to think that she was starting to have a schedule in the day. She would take two naps in the morning broken up with a feeding and some play time and she would take another nap in the mid-afternoon. Since I now get enough sleep at night to do away with the "sleep when the baby sleeps" plan, I have been using her naps to eat, shower, clean, and get work done for lab.

Today, Penelope decided that napping is not cool. She slept briefly in the morning. I was able to eat my lunch but not get much else done before she would get bored of amusing herself and want attention. She was very excited to be carried around the house and she is beginning to show interest in mirrors. (She smiles and looks at my reflection and doesn't pay much attention to her own). Anyway, so we had some fun, but I knew that she was going to get cranky if she didn't sleep and I was hoping to get some work done. I decided that we would go for a walk, since that has a similar effect to the car with its soothing vibrations. We set off for a stroll around the neighborhood. It was very overcast today (it is Seattle!), so I didn't need to cover the stroller to keep her out of the sun. She enjoyed looking around and was wide awake for the first 20 minutes of our walk, so I was beginning to wonder if the walk was going to work its magic. But, then she fell asleep and sleep through the second half of the walk and I was now feeling pretty confident of my mothering skills! We got home and as soon as I set the car seat down; she woke up!

Often, Penelope will go back to sleep on her own. So, I went and checked my email and there was an email from my PI asked me to call him to talk about a grant that we are trying to figure out. I was pretty nervous to call with Penelope still awake and still pretty much nap-less. But, she looked pretty happy so I called, but he wasn't in his office and I had to leave a message. Which was probably a good thing because Penelope started her "I am tired but can't sleep" fussiness. I thought that she also might be hungry and nursing also helps calm her, but she was fussy about latching. I had to get out the big guns: swaddling, and African music! We usually only swaddle at night because we think it helps her distinguish between day and night, but this seemed to be a special case. Penelope was pretty upset at this point, but I managed to get her in a pretty good swaddle. Then, I turned on her African music, which she loves (I could probably devote a whole post to this). She had calmed down enough to nurse and she ended up asleep in a face-plant on my shoulder after I burped her. With her in that position, I managed to talk to my mom, call my PI's assistant to see when he would be free, talk to my PI, and talk to Jason. It is very important to keep the cell phone close! After all that, she had been asleep for ~30 minutes and I felt safe moving her. She is now napping in her Pack N Play and has been for about 45 minutes. Success!