During the week I can get lost in my time with JoJo, spending 30 minutes helping her back to sleep when she wakes early doesn't phase me. I plan my day around it, I know when she will wake early and I prepare myself with an article to read or a hot cup of coffee. During the week when it's just the two of us, we consume each others schedule and we need nothing else.
However, when we go away for the weekend things fall apart. Suddenly the 30 minutes spent helping her fall back asleep feels like forever and I start to feel foolish for not being more flexible. I know my baby girl needs lots of sleep and she is a much happier baby when she gets it so how do you find a balance between keeping your structure and allowing for some flex?
I just returned from my second trip out of town in two weeks, both where just a quick weekend trip to see family. Our first trip was a complete new parent fail. We put our desires before JoJo and payed for it for 2 days upon our return home. She was so overly tired from 3 days of poor napping that her night time sleep was all over the place. She went from waking 1-2 times a night to 3-4. By Wednesday we got back on schedule, finally getting in some good naps and we were back to sleeping better with only 1 waking a night. Then Friday came and so did some company and we where `on our way again early Saturday morning. This time we took a different approach to our day. We committed to getting at least one good long (90mins+) nap a day. We also tried to not have more then one nap in a row on the go. We still had a lot of waking in the night but she was much happier when the evenings came around. We just arrived back home and I'm curious to see how tonight goes. I'm hoping I can contribute her poor night sleep to a new environment and varyingly room temperatures that are drastically different then what she is use to.
I'm still left with a classic new parent question, how do you find the balance while traveling? We have yet ANOTHER trip coming up in 2 weeks that includes a two hour time change so what can we do differently to help our next trip away from home go smoother? Here are a few tips that I'll be trying and will report back.
- Our trip is 3 days long, 2 hours ahead. I plan to stick to our time zone while there and move everything ahead two hours. Starting our day at 9am and ending the day at 9pm.
- I'm going to get things back on track and limit disruptions as much as possible for the next two weeks.
- Experiment with which nap can be disrupted without too much trouble, she is already taking her shortest nap at the end of the day (about 30-40min) followed by her longest wake time (about 2hrs) I'm hoping the evenings will be her socializing time with family, starting to wind down about 30 minutes before putting her to sleep.
- Continue to help JoJo to sleep through her 45 minute nap transition. I'm seeing some progress as long as the environment is good.
- Try and relax! Sometimes things are just out of my control and we will all live regardless. I need to keep reminding myself about his one!
