Dear Covid19, you suck.
I haven’t left the house for 10 days. Ok I did once, to the shop downstairs but that was it. N has been home for 10 straight days.
If I wasn’t a mom, and it was just me I had to take care of, I would have probably made plans and gone places. But the thought of exposing N to even a slight possibility of encountering the virus has made me the most kiasu mom ever. I’m vacuuming and mopping the floors daily, and constantly washing and wiping her toys and play yard – even though it’s basically just her and I that touch these things.
She hasn’t gone to visit her grandparents or great-grandparents (which we usually do every week) although she’s had some visitors recently.
But I’m taking this opportunity and time to work on some things like her new routine and fixing her sleeping habits. Not having to get derailed by going-out plans makes it easier to instil new norms. Here’s the schedule I’m trying to achieve for her:
Google says a 7mo should be clocking in 2-3hours of daytime sleep and 10-11hours of nighttime sleep. As of now, N still wakes up about thrice each night, at 3hour intervals.
I’ve also been using this time to get her out of the habit of needing to be rocked to sleep. Because it is tiring and honest to God the last thing I want to be doing at 2 in the morning is rocking a baby.
I’m trying the whole “put them in their cots drowsy but awake” thing. At first I was very skeptical because when is drowsy? And if she’s not asleep when I put her down won’t she fuss? But I told myself I had nothing to lose and to commit, so I did.
Lo and behold.
Ok so it has only been a couple of days so I might be delusional BUT I think it’s working? I still do rock a bit for now. Once her eyes get heavy I lower her into the cot and continue singing my lullaby while patting her bum. She’ll stare at me and I’ll just continue till she slowly drifts off to sleep.
Surprisingly (or actually not) I’ve also noticed that if she wakes up and I leave her for a bit, she actually looks around for her blankey and lies down! Although, she has yet to succeed in putting herself back to sleep but hey – we’re leaps and bounds ahead of where we were just last week!