Drilling, drilling, drilling ....

There are upsides to having your landlady live downstairs. When I couldn't find my keys anywhere (they were in a random drawer), she loaned me the key to the front door so I could walk to Giant Eagle with Michael. She's always been very attentive to things that need fixing or improving in the apartment, and now that she's just one floor down she is even more prompt about taking care of things.

I know this is a good thing, and so I'm trying not to be grumpy about the really loud hammering and sawing that's going on just outside, especially since Michael seems to be sleeping through it. But it seems like ever since our landlords have moved in, they've had some sort of worker over here every week or two. Jackhammers redo the concrete steps (twice, since the first time they were all crooked); plumbers turning off the water; electricians making more noise than one would expect electricians to need to make (although they fixed our bathroom switch, yay!); workers installing central AC in the downstairs apartment.

I wouldn't even mind, in general, except for Michael. When they were installing the AC and doing other work prior to the landlords moving in, he was pretty scared of all the noise. And it's not as if he's a great napper anyway.



Speaking of naps. Nighttime sleep is a lot better around here. Not perfect, but I'm okay with that. Michael now goes down around 8pm, sleeps until 1 or 2 before waking up to eat, then sleeps until 4ish, at which point I take him into bed with us, otherwise he'd be waking up every hour until it was time to get up. Often he'll wake up anywhere between 5-30 minutes after going down for the night and protest being in his crib, but he either goes to sleep right away if I go in and pat his back or, if that doesn't work, will cry/fuss for 10-15 minutes until going to sleep.

Ferber worked for us. The hardest night was #2, when he woke up every hour literally all. night. long. Uggggggh. But after that he settled into the pattern we have now, more or less. We had a setback when he caught a cold and had to start over, and he cried for 45 minutes the first night after that. But I no longer have to lay down with him for half an hour (or longer) and then sneeeeeak away only to have him wake up again ten minutes later.

Praise God.

Naps, on the other hand. Oh, naps. They are still like that. He will not stay asleep for more than half an hour. Will not. Naps reenergize him for about twenty minutes and then he gets super grumpy because he hasn't slept enough. By the end of the day neither of us is pleasant to be around.

This week I resolved to have him nap in his crib (rather than in our bed), even if it was only for 10 minutes at a time, just so he'd learn that crib=sleep=crib, even in the daytime. This resolution sort of fell apart yesterday, when he took one nap in his swing, one in the cars eat, and one in our bed. And we will be visiting parents for the next couple nights, so obviously naps and sleep in general are going to be different.

Maybe next week.