What Baby Wants, Baby Gets

Phoebe has been fighting naps for us when we're at home, as I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned.  She screams and screams and then after she's worn herself out, she passes out.  She's also been doing this at bedtime as well.  She does not want a pacifier at all, so this is kind of a problem.

But she takes naps - long naps - at daycare. When Chris asked D her secret, she said that she puts her down in the crib when she's acting tired, and she goes to sleep. As in, she doesn't do anything special to get the girl to sleep, Phoebe just goes to sleep.

Then we discovered the mitigating factor - being swaddled. Phoebe absolutely does not want to be swaddled anymore. On Sunday, we put her down for a nap unswaddled and she slept for nearly three hours! And then when she was tired again, I put her down, tired but awake, and she took another 45 minute nap.

Two nights ago, Phoebe slept through the night for the first time in a few weeks. When she woke up around 6 or 6:15, we found that she had wriggled her way out of the swaddle blanket, had turned over on to stomach, and was sucking her thumb.  Aha! Yes, our baby is a thumbsucker. Evidently, she can't suck her thumb when she's swaddled (shocking, I know), which equals going to bed mad, and waking up in the middle of the night mad.

Chris wanted to wait on de-swaddling her, but I figured why not try it out. So last night, we put her in a sleepsack, put her to bed at 7:30, and she slept straight through until about 4:30 AM. When Chris brought her in, she was vigorously sucking on that thumb of hers.  She ate, went back to sleep, and I woke her up at 7.

Of course, when it comes time to breaking her of sucking on her thumb, I'm not sure what we'll do.  We finally broke Charlotte of using the pacifier by cutting the nipple off the pacifier a little at a time.  For the past six months or more, she's gone to bed with a pacifier that consists just of the hard plastic.  She can't suck on it anymore, but she likes to hold it.  We can't cut off Phoebe's thumb lest we land in jail (not that we'd want to, it's such a cute little thumb).  In the meantime, baby's happier that she can self-soothe, and that makes us happier.

Coming up this weekend: a camping adventure involving one six person tent, a three year old sleeping in a sleeping bag for the first time on the ground, a 4 month old whose sleeping habits are completely unpredictable, bears rummaging for food,  coyotes howling at night, and a lot of dirt. We bought these in anticipation of roasting marshmallows, and Charlotte has been asking for a campfire everynight.  (Also, I should take a picture of the way that our tent instructions show how to properly fit six people in it - five stick figures lying across and one stick person lying perpendicular and below them).