Operation Naptime

In honor of Ben's three-month birthday (!!!), I had planned on taking him to the pediatrician to have him weighed. However, it is currently eighteen degrees outside (with a "feels like" temperature of three degrees), and I just couldn't bring myself to take him out of the house. So instead, I am making him learn an important big-boy skill: napping.

We totally lucked out on the bedtime front and didn't really have to teach him how to sleep then. I'm not sure if I ever whined about it here, but for the first six weeks of Ben's little life, he had day and night confused. He would sleep alllll day long, and then at night, he would look roughly like this:
Giant blue eyes, open as wide as they could go, not even blinking (as a sidenote -- aren't his eyes beautiful?). And I felt like he was too young to understand "crying it out" until he fell asleep in his crib, so neither he nor I slept much during that period.

Then, suddenly , some switch got flipped in his little brain, and he magically understood that nighttime was for sleeping. Since then, I feed him at bedtime (usually around 9:30-10:30), put him to bed in whatever state he happens to be in (sometimes already sleeping, sometimes awake but sleepy), and he will sleep for the next several hours, probably wake up to eat, and then go right back to sleep until morning.

This is still kind of amazing to me because we never had to do the whole let him cry for longer periods of time each night until he figures it out thing. He just figured it out. Daniel and I got to witness this firsthand last week. We were at my in-laws' house for Thanksgiving, and Ben was sleeping in a pack-and-play in our room, and I watched him wiggle and look around quietly for about 10 minutes and then drift off to sleep. Glorious!

Naptime, however, was a different story last week. I'm pretty sure he only took about two decent naps all week, which is craaaazy for a kid who normally sleeps between every feeding. Before spending a week away from home, I thought he was a good napper, but now I know that's only because I always put him in his swing (the merits of which I have already enumerated here) to nap. So with another, much longer, trip ahead of us in a few weeks, I'm trying to teach Ben to sleep in places other than the swing.

Place-Other-Than-the-Swing #1: The Living Room Floor
I know. It seems kind of cruel, doesn't it? But there are a few legs of our Christmas travel that will not afford us access to a pack-and-play, so I want him to be able to sleep anywhere. Including on a blanket on the floor. I'm not sure why I put the pillows there. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time.

Here's a funnier view from the balcony above the living room:

He fussed for a minute but then decided he was too tired to mess with it. So he slept there for about 45 minutes. Not as long as I was hoping, but I'll take it for now. Good job, baby Ben! And happy birthday!