Today, as I was washing my hair with the super, ultra, cheap, generic-brand shampoo that we buy, I noticed the "type" of shampoo it claimed to be had an unusual title. Most shampoo's claim to be for a specific type of hair (for thick hair, for fine or thin hair, for normal hair - which I find funny... who goes around saying... "yeah, I have normal hair") or it claims to do something for your hair (volumizing shampoo or color treatment protection)... you know, the "type" of shampoo it claims to be. Well, this particular shampoo's type is "daily clarifying." This got me thinking... "how does one clarify their hair???" By using this shampoo, am I confirming to myself... yep, its hair, and not something else like spaghetti or yarn or something. After pondering that for a while, I came up with two conclusions: 1) I guess the type "daily cleansing" has been trademarked by a more expensive name brand shampoo... leaving my cheap shampoo with the phrase "daily clarifying," and 2) I guess I'm getting my money's worth of my cheap shampoo, since every time I use it, it helps me clarify that I do in fact have hair on my head... which is what it claims to do for you!
Good thing I have this medium to express these all important thoughts to the public! : )
8 comments:
sounds like a waste of money....why am I paying to clarify wheather or not you have hair??
At least they aren't false advertising what their product does! : )
Hi Kristen-
Below is a comment you posted on the babywise blog a year ago...and I discovered it in my search for answers! I am currently having the exact same issue. My son though is a bit younger at 14 weeks, but it appears to be the same issue. The blog answered your comment by saying to put him down earlier at an hour - but didn't reference how that would totally condense your cycles for the rest of the day. Did this work, putting him down at an hour? How did it affect the rest of the cycle? Tell me it gets better!!!!
My little guy is just over five months and sometimes shows signs of sleepiness or gives off sleeping cues after only an hour of waketime. Do you think its ok to put him down for a nap that early? Some days he can stay awake longer, but other days he can only make it (happily) for one hour, before he starts to get fussy and tired. Since four months he's been waking out of naps after only sleeping for 30-45 minutes. Perhaps I'm keeping him up too long for his waketime? Also, if I do put him down for a nap after only an hour of waketime, won't that drastically condense his schedule throughout the day? Any suggestions you have would be great! Thank you! :)
Hey Melissa,
I will do my best to answer your question. I would LOVE to help out another BW mom who's having the same nap/sleep issues we did!!!!... It was over a year ago for us, however, so I'll do my best to think back that far!
It sounds like your little guy is having the same issues my Nathan (now 18 months) was having: only being able to tolerate a short waketime (about an hour), and waking early out of naps (after only sleeping for 30 minutes).
The biggest thing we did to help solve these problems was to first help Nathan recoup lost sleep. From days on end of short naps, he was sooo overtired! The best way we helped him recoup lost sleep was to implement a super early bedtime. We didn't do this until he was maybe 7 or 8 months, in which case we'd feed him dinner around 5pm, then do his bedtime routine and give him his last bottle before bedtime around 6ish and then put him to bed by 6:15 or 6:30. At 7 or 8 months, Nathan could go 12-13 hours overnight between feedings. With your little guy still at 5 months, I'm not sure if he might need a dream feed in there or something? But regardless, an early bedtime helped him catch up on lost sleep!
Secondly, we kept him at two daytime naps with one evening catnap all the way up until he was 11 months (and by then his bedtime was pushed back to 7pm). Getting three naps in per day helped him get through the day!
Next, I kept a sleep log to really help me track his waketime lengths to see if there was an optimal amount of time to keep him awake. At the very least it helped me pin down nap times that worked best for him.
In terms of his schedule condensing... I just tried to keep his feeding times about the same everyday, even if he woke up early out of a nap, throwing off the whole feed/wake/sleep cycle. The feed/wake/sleep cycle is nice, but its not everything! : ) Some days we sort of fumbled through it, other days (with longer naps) we adhered to it. Just do your best! Since you can't control the nap lengths necessarily, you can at least control the feeding times to give your day a little more structure! (Because Nathan wasn't a good napper and was so tired by the end of the day, he slept really well at night... not following the feed/wake/sleep cycle never affected his night time sleep!)
Something else that could be helpful once your little guy is older, maybe 9 months, (which I didn't start doing until Nathan was over a year old, but WISH I would have done earlier) is start having SET naptimes. This will totally help your sanity and possibly help his naps since his body will just come to expect naps at those times, instead of you having to try to follow his sleepy cues!
So, I hope this was helpful. I know the short nap issue can be really stressful. I drove myself crazy over it! It does get better! Nathan started taking two really good naps a day around 13 months. Now that he's 18 months we are trying to sort through the two nap to one nap transition!!!!! Anyways, let me know if you have any additional question! : )
-Kristin
Thanks sooo much! Everything you described going through - is exactly what we are going through! He sleeps really well at night, and his current bedtime is 7pm and he sleeps till about 5:30, entertains himself for a half hour and then dozes back off till 6:30ish when he is then ready for the day. We do a dream feed still at 9:30 (used to be 10, but we are slowly pushing back to eliminate it in a few weeks). He will wake early out of his nap with like an hour and half to go until the next feed (arrrhgggg!) so tried letting him CIO with absolutely no success. So now we go in, change his diaper, and rock him back to sleep. It seems like this may bite us in the rear later with the coddling, but other than just letting him scream or feeding him early to become a snacker - it's the only thing left to do.
Thanks again! It's comforting to know we aren't alone.
Also - since you've been at this longer and have been in the BW site more...have you ever heard of them losing interest in eating? During the times he's super awake and alert, he'll chow down a few oz and then totally lose interest. It's a herculian effort to get him to take a full feeding. He's been doing that for a couple weeks now. Weight is increasing nicely, daily average intake is fine - but it's an effort to keep him interested!
Hmm, Nathan didn't really experience a loss of interest in eating... but maybe starting solids would help??? We started Nathan on solids at 4.5 months because he has pretty bad acid reflux and we thought it might help lessen his condition to have a partial liquid and partial solid diet. When we first introduced solids (infant rice cereal) we'd give him half of his bottle, then spoon-feed him the solids, then feed him the rest of his bottle. He did well with it. If you're considering trying this, the method for introducing solids is laid out really nicely in the second BW book. : )
Hey Melissa,
How have naps been going for your little guy? Have things gotten any better!? Set nap times really seemed to improve things for us and I wish I would have started using them sooner! One other thought I had about your last question regarding your little guy chowing down so fast and then all of a sudden losing interest in feeding is maybe you need to switch from a low flow bottle nippled to a medium flow nipple??? Just a thought! I hope things are going better for you guys. Things really do improve with age. Nathan is now 20 months and is doing much better in the nap department!
-Kristin
Post a Comment