so yejin is almost 7 months old now and i swear i can count on one hand the number of times she’s napped anywhere but on me or my partner in the last few months. like, if she’s asleep, she’s probably touching one of us. and i get it, contact naps are a thing, especially when they’re tiny and need that warmth and closeness. but now?
she’s getting heavy, and i’m seriously starting to feel like my body is just a glorified baby pillow. my physio mentioned my posture is probably a mess from all the hours spent hunched over, trying not to wake her. and i’m not even talking about getting my own body back in terms of fitness or anything like that, just my own physical space, you know? like being able to put her down in her crib and have her stay asleep for longer than 5 minutes without her fussing because she can’t feel me breathing next to her.
i just want to be able to move around my own house without planning my entire day around her sleep schedule being tethered to my chest. it feels like i’m losing bits of myself, like this weird sense of personal territory. i can track her diapers and feeding ounces in careclinic pretty easily, but how do you even quantify the mental drain of being a human incubator for naps? i’m wondering if this is just a phase everyone goes through, or if some babies are just…
more attached? how did you work through this if your LO was like this? did anything help? did they eventually start napping independently?