Da Maya Code

So I saved up my box tops, sent in my $4.95 to cover shipping and handling, waited the requisite 4 to 6 weeks and finally my baby decoder ring arrived in the mail. Thank Heavens! Now maybe I could finally stop pulling my hair out. So I figure I start with one problem at a time, you know so I don't overwhelm the decoder ring.

Problem #1 was going to be this waking up every 30 to 60 minutes crap. I am so over this. Sleep doesn't count when it's doled out in 60 minutes intervals all night. Now I'm the first to admit that, at times, I tend to forget that Maya is her own person and as such she's enjoying her own baby experience. You see everything about the way Abby and Maya entered the world was so similar I just, naively, assumed that their babystages would be similar as well. Wrong! I'm getting that loud and clear. Now. A bit of a slow learner I guess. You see Abby abhorred the heat. She could not stand it. Of course her VSD was quite large which put a huge strain on her just to simply breathe so any extra heat and the poor little thing would be exhausted. She spent a lot of time (nearly) naked. When she got older and began having night terrors heat was still an issue. Night terrors can be triggered by being too warm while sleeping. So with Abby it has always been about keeping her cool. So because of that I've been sending poor Maya to bed in a onesie and a sleep sack. Maya, apparently, has not been down with that. The trick to getting Maya to sleep through the night is a combination of PJ's, sleep sack, turning off the ceiling fan and closing the vent in her room. Eureka, we have a baby that will sleep, largely undisturbed, through the night. I get up maybe once or twice to locate a missing sucky and that's all folks!

Now problem #2 is something the decoder ring and I are still working on. Maya feels that napping during the day just isn't necessary. I respectfully disagree, but it's really not a topic of discussion we engage in only because she spends most of the afternoon alternately screaming and crying. And yet she still doesn't buy into the whole... you are exhausted argument. What a baby! I feel I should qualify my earlier statement, Maya will nap during the day, but only on my person. Now I have nothing against holding/snuggling/bonding with my child, but to hold her for a 2 hour nap is just not practical for a variety of reasons like: a) my arm falls asleep around the 20 minute mark and I HATE that pins and needles feeling; b) I am living the Cinderella-lifestyle here so that means there's lots of floors to be scrubbed, the ugly stepsisters need their laundry done, clothes need to be sewn for the mice and so on; c) Maya is not the only little person in the house needing attention, the other one needs juice to be poured, grilled cheese sandwiches not to be cooked, to be reminded what's an appropriate amount of toilet paper, lifeguarded at the pool and so much more. So sleep training has begun. Day one, went very well indeed. Nap 1 took about 30 minutes before sleep was achieved, said sleep was sustained for a period of 90 minutes. Nap 2 took place after lunch and took a whopping 10 minutes to achieve and resulted in a 180 minute nap. We had one pleasant baby that evening. We even went grocery shopping with no seraming/arguing/crying. Day two was worse with only about 120 napping minutes total for the day. She did go to bed early, but was up early since she missed her last half of her bottle, but she went right back to sleep afterwards. We'll have to see what this afternoon brings. I'm remaining hopeful.

Maya Contest Update: The BabyStages photo contest that I have entered Maya in goes for the year, with each month producing one winner. If Maya wins one month she will have a 1 in 12 shot of being featured on the cover of the BabyStages magazine, she will also win some cool prizes. This month took a bit of time to validate the winner so if you tried to vote recently you weren't able to. The contest is now back up and running with the votes having been reset. Now you must enter your email address and have it authenticated before you can vote, you must do this only once. So if you a have a minute, vote for Maya and please, tell all your friends. Thanks!!