Paying Attention to Signals

Yesterday Caroline took a long nap from 4:45 to 7:45 (3 hours). She woke up in a good mood and started eating dinner. 1/2 way through her apples and chicken, she started crying and fussing. We think it was one of the two molars she has coming in. I thought the front teeth were bad, but molars seems to take for ever. So we stopped and gave her some milk to round out her meal. We then let her be "free range" baby while we watched the Grammys. about 8:15 she started coming over to me and rubbing her head on my leg. She wanted me (and only me) to pick her up and hold her. Then she would get impatient with me and fuss until I let her back down. She would go around the room once and then back to me. We didn't think she could be tired since she took a power nap, but the eye rubbing and head rubbing continued with the fussing getting louder and longer. Finally the decision was made at 8:45 that maybe she wanted to go to bed. I picked her up and got big smiles. I said, "Time for Caroline to go to bed." Happy burble. I thought at this point I was going to get screams when I put her down in her crib because all of the sudden she seemed so awake. I took her up to her room and put her into the crib. She grabbed her pink blanket, pulled it over her little body, and gave me a "What took you so long Mom?" look. Then with a happy sigh she rolled over. I closed the door and went downstairs. "No protest?" asked Peter. "None. Much to my amazement." I replied. If I had understood the signals sooner, I think I could have avoided some major fussiness. She seems to be gathering a greater sense of self.