Yesterday marked my second Mother’s Day.

My Miriam Scarlett (Mira for short) – celebrated her first birthday on March 15. We have come so, so far since she came into the world. It was not only the beginning of her life, but the beginning of our lives as parents. Mira was the first for each of us.

My last trimester was a difficult one and she was born two weeks early at 5 pounds 13 ounces. She was tiny but intense from the beginning. Our first challenge, as it is for many, was breastfeeding. She simply refused – after two days she had dropped dangerously fast to under 5 pounds. Her pediatrician insisted we supplement with a bottle or she’d be classified as “failure to thrive” and not be allowed to leave the hospital.

Mira refused me for a full six weeks despite the intervention of a spattering of experts and professionals. Every three hours, I’d try to nurse her for an hour. During that hour, she’d rage. So not to confuse her, I’d then hand her off to someone else for the bottle. Each time it felt like I was handing her off for someone else to satisfy and comfort.

It broke me.

About two weeks after her birth, my husband found me within her nursery weeping in the rocker, desperately trying to get her to latch. He promptly got a bottle, handed it to me and spoke three words: “Feed your daughter”.

That moment was significant. From the outside it must have seemed a small thing, a logical thing. For me it was permission. Liberation. It was as if I’d been suffocating for days and someone finally opened a window. Whatever damage might come from “nipple confusion” – it certainly couldn’t be more detrimental than the sad cycle Mira and I had created in the effort of its prevention.

I continued to pump and try to nurse, but it never did happen for us. At six weeks, I had surgery and was hospitalized for two nights. At that point, I abandoned the breast feeding effort. I simply made peace with it. I had neither the physical strength nor the emotional reserves to keep trying.

While feeding became easier, the pattern of our days looked very little like that of my friends and family with infants. Mira cried if she was awake and slept very, very little. She almost never napped and nights were a constant battle. While she cried virtually all day, in the evenings – she raged: back-arched, purple screams for 6-7 hours at a stretch.

My husband is a police officer who works 12-hour shifts. He picked up a ton of overtime to replace the lost income during my maternity leave. He was exhausted all the time and virtually never home. He is a wonderful, kind man and he loves his daughter, but he had such difficulty in those early months. He is made to fix things, and there was no “fixing” whatever vague, shadowy thing was plaguing our daughter. There were many, many hours I felt entirely on my own.

I returned to work three months after she was born. Several weeks after she started daycare, as I picked her up, her primary caretaker pulled me aside. She crossed her arms like someone about to make a confession. “Heidi,” she said, “I’ve been doing this a lot of years and I’ve never met one like her. What can we do when she’s having an episode like that?” I fumbled through a list of things. They felt false on my lips. I was this baby’s mother and all I could offer was a sad string of attempts that never really worked for me.

At four months, things gradually got better. Though “better” was still not close to everyone else’s “normal”. My cousin has a beautiful, sweet little boy just a few months older than my Miriam. I loved to wrap my arms around his soft quiet warmth and wondered what it would be to hold my own that way. Miriam was still only when she slept. Otherwise, she twisted and pulled and thrashed as if she were battling something the rest of us couldn’t see.

At six months, I started to feel like there was hope and things were getting better. And they were.

That was the turning point for us. Six months.

She is still intense. She still isn’t much for cuddling. But that intensity has evolved to something more akin to strength or determination. She walked at 10 months and literally dances now. She chooses not to cuddle because she’d rather stretch and move and wonder at the world. For the first few months, it was so hard for even me to connect to her. The only face she presented to the world was one of sadness or anger. Today – she smiles and laughs and sings. She loves books and believes she can read them. Music fills her and she bounces and claps and twirls to its rhythms.

Ours is a love story – but she made me earn it.

All babies fuss. All babies cry. But most babies give you some beautiful sweet spots in between. Mira didn’t. Not many anyway. Not in those early months. But I appreciate the sweetness of her now all the more for it. No man appreciates water like he who has known the deepest thirst. It’s like that for us.

That’s our story. Hang in there and know that it does get better. It does get easier. Whatever you are going through now will end – and you’ll always be able to remind him or her of this when he or she is older. It might get you some incredible mother’s day gifts.

Peace to you this Mother’s Day and love to my own mother. She wrapped me in patience during my own colic then reminded me through Miriam’s that we rotten babies can turn out OK.

Heidi shares a chunk of wooded hillside in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her husband and daughter, Miriam Scarlett. When she’s not working at her real job in marketing, she’s splitting her time between a master’s thesis, a mostly done novel, two needy cats, a garden and a 100 pound Alaskan Malamute. The two blogs she started were quickly abandoned when she remembered her daughter never sleeps. Please subscribe to them. Her daughter sleeps now. You will be the incentive for her to write again.

You can find Heidi at Finding the Sacred in a Common Life and The Making of a Novel, or on Twitter.

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My daughter was just shy of 3 months old and screaming up a storm while we were surrounded by family and friends at our big annual Mother’s Day brunch. Little kids were running around everywhere  and playing, and I was holding my screaming child.

At that point my husband and I were still barely getting any sleep, and as I have admitted in previous blog posts, I hadn’t yet bonded with my poor colicky baby girl.

I have a distinct recollection of sitting on the couch while some wonderful family member held my baby to give me a break. I looked over at my then 4 year old niece and was filled with love for her. And then, immediately, I was filled with sadness. I love my niece dearly, and, at that moment, I genuinely loved her more than my old child.

I feel terrible saying that, and I felt terrible feeling that. But I would do a disservice to mothers, who I know have struggled with these very same feelings, to not admit that.

The picture above is of me holding my daughter on my first Mother’s Day, and I look oddly rested and happy. I love that I have this picture because it masks what I remember feeling like when it was taken.

I felt love for my niece, but at that point in my early days of motherhood, I felt mostly responsibility and duty for my own child.

Everyone was wishing me a happy Mother’s Day and I had to hold back tears, because I didn’t feel like celebrating the day. I didn’t feel like celebrating being a mother.

How awful is that?

There is something harrowing about colic. There is something cruel about a mother’s introduction to mommyhood being so devoid of moments of calm and happiness. There were few if any moments of motherhood leading up to that first Mother’s Day where I had time, energy or emotional expense enough to look lovingly at that precious little girl and feel anything more than exhaustion.

If today me could talk to then me, I wouldn’t try to tell myself to smile, because it would have just made me feel worse that I didn’t much feel like it. But I would give me a hug and say I understand and that it won’t always feel this way. I would tell myself that my feelings were not as unnatural as I was convinced they were and that there was joy to be had being a mom. I would have told myself not to beat myself up for not feeling it yet.

Mother’s Day is different for me now. Having my rambunctious three year old running around and my ever-smiling one year old crawling at my feet, I feel so far removed from the sad woman who tried to ‘celebrate’ that first Mother’s Day.

Motherhood is hard at the best of times, and in the early days of dealing with a colicky and fussy baby, it can be hard, if not impossible to find joy when there isn’t a lot to feel joy about. It hit me like a ton of bricks that Mother’s Day that, at that point, I didn’t feel like much of a mother. I hadn’t felt like I had done very much ‘mothering’ at all.

But I had. I had held my baby when she cried (which was all. the. time.). I had fed her and clothed her and taken care of her. Even though I hadn’t emotionally felt like a mom yet, the fact I was a mom and felt it deep down was evident in the actions I took every second of her life up until that point.

Happy Mother’s Day to every mother reading our blog. Whether you are in the early days of motherhood and handling a fussy or colicky baby, or have other children to deal with while also handling a colicky baby, or if you have older spirited kids, or if you got through colic in the past, or if you just face every normal everyday challenges we as mothers face raising our children, Happy Mother’s Day.

It’s a tough job, often thankless, and sometimes with few tangible rewards.

But once you get through the early days, once you can see evidence of your efforts, even in small ways, in the people your children become, you will see and really know and realize that you deserve to be celebrated and honoured.

I honour all mothers today.

Have a wonderful Mother’s Day.

Leslie lives in Toronto with her husband, her 3 year old daughter and 1 year old son. She is presently on maternity leave and enjoying the hectic and harried life with two young children

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You’ll step tentatively at first, maybe squint a bit.

You might even be surprised to see what your partner looks like by the light of day, not as a father at midnight madly trying to hush a baby back to sleep, but as the man you chose to spend your life with, the one with whom you made the colossal decision to have these socially ostracizing creatures in the first place.

Oh yes, sooner or later it will be time.

Having young children can make you forget yourself, or at least much of yourself.

We have camping gear that’s been sitting in our storage area for years. It hasn’t been used since Chloe was born.

Before we had kids we’d try to get out at least twice a season, on a backpacking hike into the woods or a canoe trip in Algonquin Park. It was a big part of our lives. Now it seems a distant memory.

I once complained to Julie that we were too busy socializing every weekend and didn’t have any room on our calendar to make other plans. Well, the calendar now has plenty of white space.

Getting together with friends meant a lot of work and inconvenience. Seeing a movie required finding a babysitter. As time passed, we became comfortable in our roles and routines – not satisfied or happy necessarily, but complacent.

It was just easier to resign ourselves to our situation.

Children, especially fussy children, force you to re-juggle your priorities. You realize very quickly that in order to survive young parenthood, you need to hunker down, keep your eye on the ball, and just get through it.

Every time a scheduled nap is missed, or they go to bed late at Grandma and Grandpa’s, it’s you that pays later when they wake at 4:00 screaming.

So you give up on other priorities – especially anything that requires the least bit of flexibility. After all, if baby ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

This withdrawal is normal. It’s a necessary coping mechanism, especially when your baby isn’t “that baby “ – the one who magically slept through the night at 12 weeks old who sits happily on the floor smiling contentedly at everyone who walks by.

I’ve heard tales of parents who took their babies with them to parties and rocked them gently under the table with their foot while they continued to visit.

They’re the same parents who tell you very assuredly that you should be less rigid and not stick so religiously to sleep schedules.

“Of course,” I think. “That’s what it is. I’m getting a kick out of being rigid and uptight.”

What I should have done was take Chloe to one of those parties and rock her with my big toe while she screamed blue murder all evening under the dinner table.

But fussy baby or not, there is a time when, as parents, when we should take a step back and widen our focus.

It’s okay to hunker down in the short term, to recognize the immediate, acute needs of your new young family. But it isn’t healthy in the long-term.

In North America we already drink the Kool-Aid that says we are solely responsible for our children’s’ upbringing, success, and happiness – as though the rest of the world in which they spend so much of their time has very little to do with it.

I would venture to say that our single-minded obsession with our kids does little to help them grow and understand themselves and the world around them.

Believing that our kids cannot learn to thrive without us is as dangerous as believing that we cannot thrive without them.

From the moment our children are born, it’s our job to start letting them go, a little at a time. When we teach them to take risks, but assure them they have a soft place to land when the fall, we are teaching them to be human teaching them both to strive for what they almost dare not wish, and to support those around them when support is most needed.

But to truly teach these lessons we must teach by example. In short, we must reach for our own heights, demonstrate our own grace in failure, and engage in the communities around us.

As young parents struggling with small children, we re-prioritize our lives to focus on a monumental task, as we always do when faced with an immediate and crucial need. But in the long term, our children should not be our only or even our number one focus.

It is often said that children are like sponges. They learn by observing and by mimicking. What can a parent, no matter how attentive, possibly teach a child in the long run if he or she isn’t taking the time to know herself, to dust off her childhood wonder , and to embrace new challenges?

So here is my challenge to all of us, when it’s the right time: Make time for yourselves. Make time for your spouses. Make time for your friends.

Take the time to remember what it means to be you and to explore those things that were important to you before you had children.

Do all of this, not in spite of your children, but for your children. They don’t need you to just be nannies –a nanny is a position, a job, not a person, and certainly not a parent. Children need parents. And parents are individuals first, and nannies second.

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

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Here are 5 common sleep myths you’ll want to avoid:

Myth #1:
“If I put my baby to bed later, she will sleep later the next morning.”

Reality Check: Adults can compensate for a late bedtime by sleeping in the next morning. Babies often cannot.

A pattern of too-late bedtimes may mean earlier waking and sleep deprivation for baby. Overtired bodies respond by releasing hormones, such as the stress hormone cortisol, creating more difficulties in falling asleep and staying asleep.

Surprisingly, the fix is an earlier bedtime. Try it! Your child may sleep better and longer.

Myth #2:
“If my child naps less during the day, he will sleep better at night.”

Reality Check: Following this guidance creates a vicious cycle of over-tiredness. Nap deprivation can cause difficulty settling, short naps, frequent night wakings, and early risings.

Improve your success rate by setting an appropriate bedtime.

Newborns must sleep about every 1-2 hours. For a fussy baby, try to start the soothing routine well ahead of sleep time.

Babies 6 months or older must sleep every 2-3 hours.

Toddlers can stretch 4-5 hours between naps. Figuring out your baby’s “sleep window” can mean smoother and longer nap times.

Myth #3:
“My child just needs less sleep than most children his age.”

Reality Check: Yes, total sleep requirements vary from child to child. Some children reach developmental milestones earlier and seem to need less sleep. You know your child best, and no ‘rule’ can substitute for your own good sense.

But remember, some very alert children actually need more sleep, but are better at hiding signs of tiredness, and more tenacious in fighting sleep and routine. It’s less about how many actual hours of sleep your child needs and more about consistency and routine.

Myth #4:
“I can’t sleep train my baby because I ‘m not ready to stop nursing or co- sleeping.”

Reality Check: Sleep is a learned skill that can be practiced within any sleeping or feeding arrangement. Co-sleeping creates additional challenges, but shouldn’t stop you from helping your baby learn healthy sleep habits.

If you enjoy nursing and want to continue, that’s great! However, allow baby to practice falling asleep without the breast too. Again, to achieve success, create a schedule that doesn’t pressure you or baby.

Myth #5:
“I can’t sleep-train because I can’t stand to let her cry it out.”

Reality Check: The ‘cry it out’ debate has raged on for years. But it doesn’t work for everyone and gentler, more gradual methods exist that work just as well.

Certainly, be prepared for a few tears, but you can limit those tears and support your little one with, you guessed it, consistency! Choose a method that suits your lifestyle so you can follow through regularly.

It would be lovely to believe that, once your baby is sleep trained, you’ll never have to do it again. However, developmental milestones, especially in the early years, can temporarily disrupt even the best sleeper’s good habits.

Shake things up with travel, illness, moving, or a new sibling, and you may find you have to begin again.

Don’t worry – these changes are almost always temporary. Just think — one day, your baby will be a teen, and you’ll be looking for guidance on how to get him out of bed.

Erica Desper is a postpartum doula and sleep consultant in the Philadelphia area. For over ten years she has been supporting families through the choices and challenges that come with parenting. Erica can be contacted via her Confident Parenting website and on Facebook.

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Since then, a number of our readers and Facebook members have emailed me with questions about the system, or to tell me they are planning to try it out with their sleep-challenged baby or toddler.

Well, I have good news for you!

SmartWav, the company that produces the system, has offered to award a Sleep System to one of our lucky readers.

To enter, you just need to ‘like’ us! Here’s how:

1.  Go to the official Facebook page of the Miracle Baby Sleep System, and click ‘like’.

2. If you aren’t already a fan of The Fussy Baby Site Facebook page, become a fan now.

3. Go to our review of the system, and like, share, OR tweet the post.

4. Finally, leave a comment on this post saying you’ve done #1-3 (be sure to use a valid email address when you comment so we know how to contact you.)

That’s it!

*Just make sure you’ve completed each of the 4 steps so you’re not accidentally disqualified!

Fine Print

• Must be a resident of Canada or the US.
• Contest ends Wednesday, May 2 at 5pm PST

Exclusive Discount for Members of the Fussy Baby Site

If you just can’t wait, SmartWav has also offered a special 30% discount only for members of the Fussy Baby Site.

To use the discount, enter the code: CALMBABY at checkout until Friday, May 4.

Buy the Baby Sleep System now.

Good luck!

Contest posted at Contest Canada | Canadian Free Stuff

*Updated: Contest is now closed.

And the winner is….Jessica Cooke!  Jessica, email me and I will make sure you get your sleep system asap!

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It became such a frustrating time of trying to maintain what we thought was  “best” for Tyler and trying to maintain our sanity. Sleep deprivation usually only allows for one challenge at a time.

When we were about 4 months away from the due date, my husband and I sat down and talked about the kind of baby we were going to raise. We were going to plan now so there would be no surprises:

Our baby would NOT sleep in our bed.  He would sleep in his crib, from day one, forever.

Our baby would NOT be a baby that would have to be held all the time.

Our baby would NOT run the show. He would be on a schedule.

Our baby WOULD sleep through the night.

Our baby WOULD go to sleep on his own, just by laying him in his crib.

Our baby WOULD do great in the car.  We couldn’t wait to take him places.

Well, Tyler thought he should nurse every 30-60 minutes, fall asleep while nursing, in bed with me, in my arms, and would wake up to scream for more. This was day one.

I began to realize, slowly and painfully, that our plans might just have to be thrown out the window.

My labor should have been the indicator that things do not always go as we hope. I wanted a pain-free childbirth.  I wanted it to be peaceful and relaxing.

My birth plan requested that the nurses didn’t even ask me my pain levels so that the idea of medication would be as far from my mind as possible. I ended up with Demerol, an epidural, and a c-section.

Thankfully, a couple of hours after Tyler was born, he latched on on the first try (but never wanted to let go).

We went into survival mode those first 3 months of Tyler’s life. We began doing anything and everything just to get more than an hour of sleep at a time.

This meant that, for three weeks straight, I slept in the recliner with Tyler in my arms, basically nursing him back to sleep anytime he woke up. Then we moved to our bed and Tyler slept in between us.

Tyler ate when he wanted, we carried him nonstop, and he still hates the car at 6 months.

I will never forget that night that Tyler finally, finally, fell asleep, (after crying for four hours straight), at midnight.

When Tyler started stirring around in my arms, I nervously turned my head to look at the clock, it was 8AM! I felt so good that day. It is amazing what sleep does to an exhausted mommy.

Fussy babies are hard to cope with, and they tend to drain all the energy out of already sleepy parents.

Sometimes, any sleep at all is more important than where the sleep occurs.

Sometimes, we have to give up the “rules” we so foolishly think our fussy babies will follow.

And sometimes, surrendering to a fussy baby is better than butting heads with one.

Nichelle is a stay at home mom, finishing her degree online in social science with an emphasis on early childhood education. She enjoy gardening and cooking, and reaching out to offer support and encouragement to families of fussy babies in her community.

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Adjusting to mommyhood was tough for me and on top of that, Greta was/is not an “easy” baby.

Yes, I understand that all babies require tons and tons of attention. And I understand that first time moms go through a huge adjustment period.

But I also came to understand that Greta cried, a lot. More than the typical baby. And it sucked. Greta would cry and fuss for hours out of the day. The majority of her awake time was spent fussing or screaming.

I remember when she was probably a month old being at my parents’ house, my dad was walking her around the house showing her different things. I called my husband, Russ, ecstatic, “Greta has been awake for 30 minutes without crying.” It was that unusual.

I could not take her out anywhere for the first 6 weeks. It wasn’t just that she would start screaming, it was that she would KEEP screaming. No one could stop her.

Seriously. She would go for at least an hour straight with no pause (and good lord, I know that there are colicky babies who go for hours and hours. God bless those parents, and those poor babies).

I had people tell me to ignore the crying. “Babies cry. Do what you normally would do.” I tried to heed this advice.

I remember taking Greta for a walk. She started crying after 5 minutes, per usual, but this day I decided to walk through it. Because everyone seemed to think that either A. She would stop crying or B. I would enjoy the walk despite the screams.

Well, neither happened. She screamed for 40 minutes straight. And there is NOTHING relaxing about walking with a screaming baby.

I think most people thought I exaggerated her fussiness. There are a few people who were able to witness her crying jags. But most other people saw a “typical” baby when they were hanging out with us. I think a different environment or different faces kept her distracted or entertained for brief periods of time.

When I read the definition that Dr. Weissbluth describes for colicky/extremely fussy babies, I turned to my husband Russ and said, “THAT IS GRETA!” The fact that such a definition exists made me feel a little better–there had to be other parents out there struggling then.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know/don’t know any of these parents. Well, that is a lie. I know one set of parents–my parents.

Apparently I was an extremely fussy baby. Go figure. So I had my mom, and a slew of other people who did not seem to believe me when I told them that Greta was pretty tough. Who knows, maybe I’m making that up. But I do know that I felt like no one understood. At all.

Now that Greta is close to 7 months old, life is dramatically better for all of us. I can bring Greta into stores without thinking twice. The other day I realized I actually pumped gas with Greta in the car and she didn’t start screaming.

We have actually been places with Greta for more than an hour without having to leave (for months, Greta needed to sleep pretty much after an hour or less of being awake–and this baby only naps in her swing during the day. Trust me, we have tried all other options.).

Greta’s awake time is often times filled with smiles and laughter. She is still a pretty high maintenance baby, but I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

She has character, and keeps us on our toes. No reverting to the same old same old with Greta around!

For months we tried to figure out if there was a cause for her fussiness to no avail and we will never know why she was so fussy.

Her pediatrician is pretty sure that she is a very sensitive baby, who was colicky.

I wouldn’t wish an extremely fussy/colicky baby on anyone. But I know that someday my path will cross with a mom who is losing her mind because she has such a baby, and has no one in her life who really understands, and I will be there for that mom.

I should also note that I realize how lucky I am to have a healthy baby. I do not take that for granted, but in all honesty, when I am stressed, anxious and generally not in the best frame of mind, it doesn’t seem to lessen any of these emotions to tell myself, “at least I have a healthy baby.”

I am glad that things have settled down enough that I can fully appreciate the gift that I have been given. Okay, so maybe there are still days that I don’t exactly see it as a “gift” but every single day there are at least moments that I do.

And I love that baby girl more than I ever thought possible, because, no lie, I didn’t know if I was ever going to reach that feeling with Greta. And that was really scary.

If you are a mom who was blessed with that feeling from the moment you laid eyes on your little one and never wavered with that love, you are fortunate. But just remember, it doesn’t work that way for everyone. And that is okay. I really believe that.

Amy lives in New England with her husband Russell and their adorable three year old daughter Greta. Amy works as a middle school teacher and is amazed at the parallels between adolescents and toddlers. She maintains her sanity by running, baking, and laughing.

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I recently came across the idea of the Wheel of Choice. It comes from the positive discipline model of parenting, and helps kids learn that they have power to make a conscious decision when they’re feeling overwhelmed, angry, or frustrated. When kids aren’t taught strategies for coping with these intense emotions, the default behaviours can be undesirable: hitting, screaming, yelling, tantrums, or fighting.

Creating and using a Wheel of Choice gives young kids strategies for problem solving that they may not otherwise have.

I’m excited to try this with Sammy who’s now 5.5 years old. While he’s come a long way in figuring out how to handle his emotions, I don’t think it will hurt to offer him new strategies for dealing with his disappointments, frustrations, and hurts, all of which he feels intensely.

Wheel of Choice Examples

Choices You Can Include on the Wheel

Pretty much anything you can think of that would help channel intense emotions in appropriate ways could be on the wheel. Some ideas could be:

• Walk away
• Have a drink of water
• Share a toy
• Cuddle
• Read a book
• Hitting your pillow
• Deep breathing (our kids like this one)
• Count to ten
• Go to a quiet place
• Listen to music
• Color a picture
• Use playdoh (tactile activities are great distractions for spirited kids)
• Take a bath
• Talk about your feelings (“I feel so sad that I can’t use that toy”)

For older kids, actual strategies for dealing with interpersonal conflict could also be included:

• Say sorry
• Ask if you can have a turn
• Choose a different toy
• Ask them to stop
• Express your feelings
• Draw your feelings
• Think of a new activity and move on

Other Types of Wheels

Perhaps outside of the realm of positive parenting, I thought this wheel of choice was pretty cool for toddlers and preschoolers.

Using the wheel in this way, you’re not addressing anger issues, but helping your toddler feel a sense of empowerment as they go about their daily routines.

You’ve probably already figured out that with spirited kids, transitions are a big deal. They need routine, structure and lots of advance warning when an activity is going to begin or end.

I can see this being a great way to avoid frustration or tantrums. We’ve done something similar with our kids, although not in the shape of a wheel:

(No comments on my drawing abilities)

These are all the activities that need to take place before our daughter walks out the door in the morning. She’s 8 years old, but you could easily tailor this to toddlers by including activities like brushing teeth, eating breakfast, getting dressed, etc.

By putting some power in their hands, you can hopefully avoid some tantrums, and at the same time, teach your toddler strategies for problem solving.

I’d love to know if I’ve inspirited you to try making your own wheel of choice. Tell me about it in the comments below!

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So you sleep-trained your baby and thought your sleep troubles were behind you. Then it happens – the dreaded nap battles.

Does one of these scenarios sound familiar?

Your child takes an hour to fall asleep.

Your child falls asleep easily but won’t nap in the afternoon.

Disorganized napping makes early evening an all out disaster.

Wouldn’t it be great if sleep issues were one and done?

Instead, your child’s brain and body are a virtual minefield of transitions and milestones just waiting to interfere with restful sleep.

Arm yourself with a little knowledge and you can head these changes off at the pass and enjoy smoother transitions.

6 Signs Your Baby is Ready For Just One Nap

• Your baby is between 15 and 18 months (this can vary, but is a good guideline)
  
• Your baby takes longer and longer to fall asleep for the morning nap
• Your baby takes a short morning nap, or such a long morning nap that an afternoon nap is out of the question

• Your baby sleeps uninterrupted for 11 hours at night
• You may feel the transition: two naps are too much while one nap is not enough
• You recognize a pattern developing, rather than the occasional occurrence

Keep in mind that a two to three week adjustment period might be necessary, even when things go smoothly. During this adjustment, baby may be cranky and need a slightly earlier bedtime. There will likely be days when baby still needs two naps and others where you can get by with just one.

Remember These 3 Crucial Points

Avoid making the switch too soon simply because your baby refused a nap once or twice. Don’t mistake normal age and milestone-related nap disturbances as a sign that baby is ready to drop a nap.

The afternoon nap is the one you will keep, so don’t allow baby to develop a habit of taking a long morning nap and then fighting a second one. Control the length of the morning nap to ensure your baby can go down again in the afternoon.

Ensure your baby is sleeping well through the night to avoid overtiring your child.

When You Are Ready to Make the Transition

Start by gradually pushing the morning nap later in 20-30 minute increments every few days. For example, 11:00 for a few days, then 11:30 for a few and so on until your baby has adjusted enough to make it to a midday nap (12:30 or 1:00) without growing overtired and fighting sleep.

Move bedtime earlier for a few weeks.

Be open to an occasional two nap “catch-up” day.

If your baby takes a short nap (common during this transition) try to resettle him or allow him time to resettle himself as this will be his only nap of the day.

Finally, take solace in the fact that this too shall pass. Once this transition is complete, your own schedule will become much more manageable. One daily nap makes planning and fun much easier. Congratulate yourself – you are well on your way!

Erica Desper is a postpartum doula and sleep consultant in the Philadelphia area. For over ten years she has been supporting families through the choices and challenges that come with parenting.

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I saw this meme a few months ago. It shows the difference between what the outside world thinks a stay at home mom does, and then shows what it’s really like.

I admit that, until I had kids of my own, I wondered what in the world parents did all day at home with their kids. I thought it was a sweet privilege that people could have the kind of money to make it possible for them to sit at home and do nothing all day.

That meme pretty much summed up exactly what I thought: being home is an extended vacation.

Except, not.

Turns out this was another on the long list of pre-parenthood thoughts and assumptions that were more a reflection of my ignorance than any reality.

The joke is, a parent who stays at home with their children full time is not just a parent.
A Stay At Home Parent is also;
-A teacher
-A principal
-A cook
-A clown
-A housekeeper
-A psychologist
-A tour guide
-A mediator
-A lawyer
-A judge
-A nurse
-A cruise director
And umpteen other roles my mind can’t even articulate into a word that fully encompasses the job requirements.

I have now done two maternity leaves, and in between the two, I was a mom who worked outside the home. Juggling shift work and a family was hard. Being effective at work on limited sleep and a whole lot of energy expense when I got home, was hard. Still having my synapses fire and be able to speak in adult speak after coming home and talking 3 octaves higher and in mostly single syllables was a challenge.

But none of that holds a candle to how much harder it is to be a stay at home mom.

As someone who has seen both sides, and admittedly on a limited basis (I had to keep my older child in daycare to both maintain her spot and guarantee my son’s), I can say that being a stay at home mom is, by far, the most under-appreciated job on the planet.

It’s so under-appreciated that it is most commonly referred to as ‘deciding not to go back to work,’ as if the fact it’s not paid and doesn’t involve putting on dress pants some how makes it ‘not work.’

If I mess up at at the office, my boss gets mad.

If I mess up at home, I screw up my child!

My boss, when I’m at home, doesn’t give me coffee breaks.

He doesn’t respect business calls.

He doesn’t guarantee me, offer me, or even allow me vacation days.

And sick days? Ha!

He doesn’t care how badly I need to go to the bathroom.

If he’s in a mood, that’s going to be my problem.

If I’m in a mood, that’s also going to be my problem.

My boss is a micromanager. Every second of his day better be planned to a T. He needs to be in charge, and he needs my constant attention.

My boss is unpredictable. His mood can go from good to raging mad at the drop of a hat. And he has no higher authority I can complain to when I’m harassed by him.

My boss under-pays me, under-appreciates me, physically and verbally assaults me, throws the meals I prepare for him at my face and on the floor if he disapproves and my scheduled breaks (read: his naps) are at his discretion in both length and frequency and over all consistency.

The biggest difference between the boss at home and the boss at the office is that I love my boss at home with every ounce of my being. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to make him happy. Nothing that can be happening, no day that can be full of stress, that his ear to ear 6-tooth smile won’t make disappear, even for just a minute.

He is my everything.

And maybe that’s why I can say that I’m not cut out to be a stay at home mom. And that that’s okay.

Because I acknowledge that it’s the hardest job on the planet.

I’m not cut out to be a doctor either. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to tend to my kid’s cuts and bruises and bumps. But for the big stuff, the stuff that I’m not qualified for? That stuff I’ll defer to the professionals. When something is beyond my scope and capabilities, like a serious cut, I wouldn’t feel guilty saying ‘that cut needs stitches and I don’t know how to do them.’

So I won’t feel shame in saying that I’m not cut out to be a stay at home mom.

That doesn’t mean I love my children any less than parents who do choose to stay at home. It means I love them enough to know that it is not in their interests or mine for me to stay home.

And I also now acknowledge, from meeting lots of amazing moms across this country, staying home wasn’t necessarily made possible because of one spouse’s massive salary.

Some people make sacrifices, huge sacrifices, to stay at home with their kids. Because it’s where their passions are, and what they want to do. Just like other people do to take jobs in other fields that aren’t highly paid because they love the work.

Anyone who thinks being a stay at home mom isn’t work hasn’t done it for even a day.

I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for stay at home moms, not just because of how hard their job is, but because they do it in spite of knowing that most people don’t consider it a job at all.

I guess that’s what you do when you’re passionate about something. You do it in spite of what others think.

And I guess that’s also why it’s okay for me to say it’s not my passion. That it’s too hard for me, and not something I’m very good at.

And that doesn’t make me a bad parent. It just makes me a not-so-great stay at home mom.

And that’s okay.