Could you be a little clearer when you’re tired?

I’m talking to Charlie there. We are still trying to figure him out. The books say that we should establish a 3-hour routine for Charlie of eat-activity-sleep. They say that during the day, you want the baby to have some awake/ play time after eating so that they don’t associate sleeping with needing to eat first. They say that at this age you maybe spend 30-45 minutes playing and look for signs that he is getting tired, and then have a wind down “ritual” and put him down to sleep.

The other day I was playing with him after he ate on his jungle acivity mat, and he seemed perfectly happy – eyes wide open, legs kicking a lot. I took a video of his adorable little legs kicking away. No yawns or irritability escept for the occasional gas. (When I showed the video to EB, EB commented that this was happy kicking) But he had such a hard time going to sleep and staying asleep that day. He got very cranky later that day. Well, it appears that he gets overstimulated and in fact the kicking and wide eyes may be the signs that he is overstimulated/tired. (This is what the Baby Whisperer says. And who’s going to argue with her?) And when they are overtired they of course don’t sleep as well.

Is it so hard to ask a baby to yawn and get sleepy eyed when he’s tired?  You know, maybe some eye rubbing or something? Apparently so. Today my niece Marisa was watching him while I napped and she did the same thing I had done. She was playing with him and thought, great, he’s having more awake time, so he’ll sleep better tonight. He’s happily kicking and he looks wide awake. But he wouldn’t go down for a nap. He got all upset and only calmed after swaddling and holding him in the “side/stomach” position that the “Happiest Baby on the Block” guy advocates. (Can you tell I’m desperately reading books trying to understand what the heck to do? Mostly I am trying to understand if/how we can get him sleeping through the night before I go back to work) At this point he needs to be held until he falls into a deeper sleep before he can be put in the crib. The books say that he  needs to learn how to put himself to sleep in his crib, but I tried what they suggested and he’s either too gassy or just too stimulated to do so.

In the scheme of things, though, Charlie is GREAT and I don’t want to say any more lest I jinx things. I think we are figuring him out but everyone says that as soon as you think you’ve got something down, it changes.