We've been having a devil of a time since my LO hit 5 months with nighttime sleep. I'll get it under control, and then we'll have a couple bad nights. Before 5 months, he just went to bed easily and slept through the night from 12 weeks on!
I suddenly realized yesterday that I had stopped worrying about overstimulating him. When he was a wee one (<3 months), that was my mantra: DO NOT OVERSTIMULATE! I was so careful to really limit time in the gym, and to give him lots of quiet time just staring out the window or laying in his crib. However, as he's become more active (and more fun!
) I stopped worrying about that! I'm now thinking that overstimulation may be causing some of our nighttime drama.
My LO is very cautious about new situations. He gets super serious and often begins to cry when confronted with a new place/new people. Yet, I KNOW I need to introduce him to new things! So, here's my questions:
1) How do you avoid overstimulation but still introduce them to new places/people? Is there a better time of day to do new things if your LO is a bit touchy when it comes to these things?
2) How much of the lights/music toys is too much at this age? We've been using those kind of toys a lot lately, and I'm wondering if that is overstimulating him!
3) Is there a way to tell they are becoming overstimulated before it's too late?
Thank you so much! I was looking at the calendar where I mark the new things that he does, and realized that right around whne we started having sleep disturbances was when that calendar started becoming PACKED with notations! I think there's probably a relationship between the 2!
