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I'm helping a mom today and tomorrow by watching her younger child who is 6 months old. I normally don't watch babies unless they're mine. Anyway, the baby seems to be doing better than in the past. I've watched her on 2 occasions in the past during date nights and she was a major screamer and had bad separation anxiety. She seemed super happy this morning, then went down for a nap after being awake 2 hours. Nap time lasted 30 minutes. I thought...ok, I know mom said this happens. I got her up but noticed immediately that she still seemed tired (rubbing eyes, cranky). The next 2 1/2 hours were bad (crying, cranky, only ok if I held her every second). Obviously I could not do that because I was busy changing diapers, cooking lunch, cleaning, helping brush teeth, etc. I tried to stretch her awake time so she would sleep longer. I finally put her down for second nap 2 1/2 hours after first nap. Now, 30 minutes later, and she is crying. Any advice? Should I go to her? I don't want another 2 hours of misery where she will most likely wake everyone else up. There is no way 1 hour of sleep time since 6 am is enough for a 6 month old!
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So she is only there for a day or two? There is really nothing you can do with her at this point but just hang on for dear life.
But for the record, for a kid at that age, I wouldnt expect them to stay awake longer than an hour or an hour and half before needing another nap. Keeping kids up longer in hopes that they will be more tired usually backfires, especially with infants.
I would swaddle her and put her in a darkened room with white noise and leave her there till she gets a good nap. Of course check on her....I didnt mean to imply to just dump her in there alone. But she is going to be crying all day anyway so why not have her fuss it out towards a nap. Its a pretty rare kid that can go for very long when there is no stimulation whatsoever in the room and they are swaddled tight for a nap.
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