If the kid seems crazy she's probably tired

Before we figured out her signs of tired, we spent almost two months thinking Carolina was becoming colic or some other stomach problem.

Almost every afternoon she would have a few hours, on and off, of crying loudly and what I referred to as "crazy time". She just seemed like she was a little crazy. Inconsolable. She'd move her legs up and down wildly sometimes which made us think it was gas. I totally changed my diet to help her. Almost no change. Bought a few different liquid remedies for colic. No help except we know she is no fan of the taste of anise, just like mom. And she doesn't care too much for chamomile tea, even with sugar.

She didn't nap much. Didn't eat a lot but did often, almost every hour on the dot. Didn't sleep much at night so we were convinced it was stomach problems. And we were giving her Mylicon like it was going out of fashion. It had a strangely quieting effect but didn't solve the "gas problem." Poor thing.

Wrong!

What made me realize it was one line in the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby". It basically said that all babies need to sleep after two hours of wakefulness. A gigantic lightbulb went off for me. Holy shit! Every two hours? She doesn't do that. She MUST be exhausted. Wait! She should be sleeping 15-18 hours every 24hour period?! Oh my god. She HAS to be exhausted. She doesn't sleep nearly that much.

Then the book goes on to explain that if a baby doesn't nap enough during the day, she will be overstimulated and won't sleep well at night. So keeping her up so she sleeps more at night is the exact opposite of what a baby needs. And she was awake until about 9-10pm many nights. I didn't realize how wrong that was, nor did I realize how not enough sleep could also affect her brain development. So i was on a mission now... I knew how to keep her up but no idea how to get her to relax to sleep. We thought she would just fall asleep when tired, like we do.

Wrong!

Her job was to give us the signals she was tired and we then had to provide the environment to help her sleep. We found "The Happiest Baby on the Block" techniques (thank you, Julia) to be the most helpful. So we now bring her to the room, make it as dark as possible, put on the AC and/or white noise machine, swaddle her firmly, put the chupon in her mouth and rock her if necessary. Sometimes she would still cry and fight sleeping so we put the "womb sounds" on loudly too. After about a week of being consistent in how we prepared her for bed and how nap time went, she fought less and slept more.

She might fight us the entire time but when the combination is right she will settle down right away and sometime within the next 30 minutes is usually asleep. Sometimes for just 20 minutes and sometimes for 3 hours, depending on time of day and other factors. But she sleeps.

She is far less "crazy" since we address her tiredness instead of stomach. She also looks happier when she wakes up.

I wish we had known these things earlier. Or rather how to institute them earlier for our daughter specifically. But we got it now.

And naturally she is developing a sort of schedule. Two naps in the morning after get up at 6am and a bath. And then at least two Naps in the afternoon. Some days the naps are long and sometimes short or some combo. But at least I know that by about 6pm, she will be sleeping soon and only get up to eat about 4-5 times until it's time to wake up at about 6am.

Don't get me wrong. I still long for the night when she will sleep 4+ hours. Some days I'm desperate for it. But at least she's less crazy and more smiley.

In order of checking when crying starts:
1. Outside pain? Easy since you can know immediately if you did something that was too tight or banged her.
2. Hungry? Again easy since if you shove the bottle or boob in she will usually take it. And always always get her to burp after a feed. Even if it's a tough one and takes a few minutes. The sitting up position with firm pats to her back are most efficient way to do it.
3. Tired? Go through every step to calm get down for sleep especially if there was even the smallest yawn recently.
4. Inside pain? Stomach problems. Other than burp. Maybe there's a poop a-brewing.

And that's my kid.

I hear one day she will even have a schedule of sleep I can follow so I can make plans. But I bet that's just crazy talk from parents of older babies trying to make me feel better ;)