The miracle of good naps

Ever since Aiden came home from the hospital a little over five months ago we have struggled to get him into a good nap routine during the day. He is a champion sleeper at night. Within the first two months he had developed the routine of sleeping ten plus hours at night. When he first started extending his night sleeping I was a little worried that he was going too long between feeds. I needed to nurse him at night more frequently than he awoke to feed. We both adjusted and I was surprised at how well he slept at night with no effort on my part.

Being just like his dad Aiden knew that when it is dark outside it is time to sleep, and to stay asleep until it gets light again. Right now he wants to go down for the night by 6pm. With the long dark nights upon us he will happily sleep for between eleven and twelve hours during the night. Yet daytime naps continued to be a struggle.

No matter how tired he got, Aiden just would not stay asleep during daylight hours. Every day was another battle to get him to nap for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. I always lost. He would take four naps but together they would add up to little more than an hour of sleep.

Then at the beginning of last week it changed. Rob and I had been doing some spiritual spring cleaning. We decided not only to unplug the cable (which we had only connected for the teenagers who stayed with us last school year) but we also removed it altogether. Along with the TV went to home theater system that had survived from Rob's bachelor days. His extensive DVD movie collection went too. We removed the world from our home and it resulted in a miracle.

We are now half way through our second week of the miracle of good naps. Our little boy now has a one hour nap after breakfast then a two hour nap before lunch. Later in the afternoon he will have another one hour nap. That's four hours of daytime naps. And he still sleeps all night long.

Finally I can get caught up on chores. Finally I can once again feel organised. Once again my darling husband can come home to dinner on the table and other delights like freshly made cookies. My son is happy. My husband is happy. I feel so blessed.

I am at peace now that I have order again. I am calm now that the distractions are gone. We are more together as a couple and as a family. I am reinvigorated with an energy I haven't felt in a long time.

The Lord is so good to us. He is patient and merciful. He was willing to wait for us. Then once we were ready to do whatever He required, He met us and transformed us.

Rob and I have agreed that from this point on we have to be a lot more careful about what we allow in our home. We have a responsibility to protect our son (and any other children if the Lord so blesses us) and guard his heart until he is old enough to guard it himself.