Getting the hang of the obvious

I'm sure that by the time I've popped out 8 kids (haha) I'll be doing things in auto pilot.  But for now, even the most obvious of mothering duties is a baffling, arduous task.

Take, for example, putting baby to sleep.  Feed, play, watch for tired signs (lists of these can be readily obtained) then put baby down for a nap.  It's quite logical, right?  Makes much more sense than waiting until baby is so overtired that a screaming match ensues, requiring the baby to be rocked or comfort-fed to sleep, then not being able to be put down without being woken.

So if it's so darn logical and simple, why is it beyond me??

Perhaps:
~ because I have a poor sense of time at the best of times, let alone when I've had broken sleep for months.  I don't notice how long 'play time' has been so forget to watch for tired signs.
~ my baby doesn't display the particlar list of signs I'm watching for.
~ I'm distracted by other things and not paying attention to him until he starts to cry.
~ I'm not used to having my activities interrupted, so I try to push sleep time back just a few minutes so I can 'just really quickly finish these last few dishes before the water goes cold', but my young baby doesn't have a tolerance margin of a few minutes yet.
~ my baby has grumpy days and sometimes skips the tired signs and goes straight for a good ol' cry.

Whatever the combination of reasons, it often just doesn't work.  So on the odd occassions when I have a near textbook feed-play-settle-sleep cycle, I feel so gosh darn proud of myself!