Happy New Year! Here at Tallulah Central we started our New Year's resolutions a bit early. During our Christmas away Tallulah's sleep was fragmented and difficult enough to give me the courage to lay down the law about naps. So the first day we were back in Brooklyn I started Operation Nap Alone. You may remember that at first Lula would only sleep while in contact with another person, and then we got her to sleep alone at night but not during the day. Every few weeks I would try to put her down in her crib for a nap, and she would toss about and scream and cry hysterically for half an hour or more (until I'd come and get her.) But! Starting last Monday I carefully mirrored our usual bedtime routine -- saying goodnight to the apartment and cats and lights, singing some songs, and nursing in the rocking chair -- only at 10am. And then I put her down in her crib and left the room, and after about five minutes she fell asleep! Like a big girl!
And since then she's been napping alone every time, twice a day. The only trouble (besides her continuing 5-10 minute protest cries after I put her down) is that sometimes her naps are way too short, which makes the rest of the day with her a bit of a challenge.
I have a number of other resolutions, of course. They all involve reconnecting with my adult self. I feel like I've been half-asleep for the past 11 months. The new naptime discipline is part of the solution to that problem. Lula's been getting better with the sippy cup, too, which is another part. When she's a year old she's allowed to have cow's milk, so I might be able to avoid pumping and bottles altogether. And once Lula can nap and drink liquids without me I can leave the house for the day and go to work.
Tallulah herself is still cruising up a storm (and not crawling.) I can now make a little cruising course with a bunch of chairs plus the coffee table and she’ll walk around and between them by herself. And then she'll fall down, and she'll cry/yell, even though she's not hurt. It's surprising and frustrating to suddenly be on the floor, I suppose. We've started going out to brunch again, which Lula enjoys as long as we keep giving her samples of whatever we're eating. It's entertaining to see what she’ll enjoy (anything bread-like), what she'll tolerate at first but later reject (avocados, oranges) and what she'll reject instantly, letting it fall from her mouth (egg yolk, melted cheese.) We clean up after ourselves so the waitstaff doesn’t hate us too much.
One more thing: our friend Jessie gave birth to a baby girl on Jan. 1st. An actual New Year's baby! Happy Birthday, unnamed one!
