Why Won't my Baby Take his Naps!?

Kevin playing in the dog's bed

Yesterday was so frustrating!  Kevin just wouldn't take his naps!

Normally, Kevin and I have a pretty good schedule.  Usually, I get up at 4:00 a.m. with Grig, help him get off to work, and then I have a couple of hours to blog, work on books I'm writing, and work on video editing.  Then, around 7:30 a.m., Kevin wakes up.  We play together for a few hours and I usually get some household things done, and a couple hours after he wakes up he takes his first nap.  He usually sleeps between an hour and a half and two hours.

After he wakes up, we usually go on a walk outside, check the mail, and enjoy the warmth (though it is getting colder).  Then, we come back inside and I usually try to get a few more things done.

Around 2:00, he takes a second nap, and I spend that time writing, reading, or sometimes just relaxing.  Then, Grig gets home around 4:00, which is when Kevin usually wakes up, and we do various things for the rest of the night.

It's a great schedule!  I love it, and Kevin is so happy when he gets his naps.

However, the last two days, Kevin has absolutely refused to take a nap. Kevin would tell me that he was tired like he normally would, and we went in the bedroom to lay down.  He would almost close his eyes numerous times, and then he would sit up or start singing.  It was very cute at first, but then he started getting grumpy.  I'd try to help him lay down and he'd fight with me. I'm not very good at holding still when there is nothing to do, so yesterday, after laying down with Kevin for over two hours, I was starting to get a little cranky.  Which is totally not something I would normally do.

So, eventually I said, "If you don't want to sleep on the bed, let's try your crib again."  (We've been trying to gradually help him be crib-trained recently.) I put him in his crib, and he was happy for about five minutes.  Then, he began to scream.  I waited as long as I could to see if he would calm down and go to sleep.  I even took the shower I'd been needing all day.  When I finished, he was still standing up and screaming, so I took him out of his crib.

He was so tired, but he absolutely refused to go to bed. 

After he recovered from the traumatic crib experience, he was happy to play for a little while, and eventually, he fell asleep on my chest around 12:30 p.m.  Happy, I put him in his crib and sat down to unwind.

An hour later, he woke up screaming.

He didn't sleep for the rest of the afternoon.  His eyes were all red from exhaustion and I couldn't figure out what was going on.

Finally, it hit me.  He was in pain from teething!  His nose had been running the last few days, and so Grig and I decided to try some baby Tylenol before bed.  Half an hour after we gave it to him, my happy little boy was back!  An hour later, we went to bed and he slept well the whole night.

If only I had realized that he was in pain hours before, our day may have been far less stressful.

You live and learn, I guess.

Poor guy.  Teething is hard.