Lesson: Naps are key

Oh man. Yesterday was fun. My husband, the Little Man, and I went sort-of-spur-of-the-moment down to visit some relatives to celebrate my youngest cousin graduating college. My sister and mom (who both live about 500 miles away) also made the decision to come last-minute and so I was excited to see so much family unexpectedly.

As we were getting ready to go, the Little Man nursed and then dropped off to sleep. It was about time for his long nap. In my parenting naivete, I said "No worries, he'll sleep in the car. It's a 2 hour ride, which is about right for his nap."

Um. Once woken to be placed in his car seat, he didn't go back to sleep. At all. For the rest of the day.

He did great at the party. He was smiley and playful and cooed at grandma and his aunts. He never cried once. Everyone remarked on how beautiful and well-behaved he was. At around the pre-arranged time we said our good-byes. Our goal was to get home before dark so that we could have some decompression time before bed. I hoped that he would get in a nap on the way home.

Nope. No such luck.

What was supposed to be a 2 hour ride took closer to 3. He screamed.his.head.off. We would pull over so that I could nurse him, calm him, burp him, change him - anything to make him happy. He was having none of it. He would calm down while we were stopped, but as soon as the car started up again he was right back at it.

Our poor little guy was mostly awake (with maybe two 15-30 minute naps) from 12:30 PM until 10:00 PM. He was a wreck. I felt terrible. He felt terrible. We all felt terrible.

Lesson for the day: Never wake him up from the long nap unless it's an emergency. And by emergency, I mean a fire or tornado is bearing down on the house. Also, while it's technically feasible to make last minute plans like we did with the baby...it's really best to plan these things ahead.