Naptime

Naptime, naptime, naptime, naptime. Naptime has always been a 'see what works' thing for me. I tend to let Nathaniel lead the way. I just watch for signs and patterns and work them into our daily routine. He was a no napper/sometimes cat napper when he was real small. Then I started to notice when he'd sleep after feedings and set that as his nap schedule. He fell into a 3 nap a day schedule for awhile. These were usually an hour or less. Than after a few months he started transitioning. He'd take less of a midday nap. So I just weeded it out. He then took two naps a day. The morning nap was always shorter. This has been quite consistent for awhile. Long enough for me to take that 'ME' time for granted :)

 

The morning nap has been my showering/eating breakfast time. Well..... now Nathaniel has officially dropped that morning nap. We are down to one afternoon nap. Over the last several weeks as I'd put him down for his morning nap, he would just move around and chit chat to himself upstairs. I'd watch through the monitor and laugh. I'd go up after 5 minutes and give him a little *shooshing* *it's naptime* and leave and see what would happen. 50/50 he would go to sleep, then it become 25/75 and now it is 0/100. Officially ending the morning nap. (If I could only convince him that when he is an adult he will LOVE and WISH he had time to nap freely)

 

It is throwing me for a loop (several confusing loops). 1) I now have to change my shower/breakfast routine. He wanders around my room as I get ready. It is working for now. He just explores, bugs the dogs, watches a little Mickey Mouse club and pretty much empties my cabinets. 2) He plays with my mind sometimes because he looks sleepy off and on. He will sometimes lay on the floor and look tired, but if I take him up to his crib he doesn't sleep. 3) If we go somewhere before noon he falls asleep in the car unless it is super close. I can't just stop going anywhere so I'm hoping this is just part of the transition. 4) His eating/milk schedule is all a little off. Everything is pushed up a bit so he can take his afternoon nap earlier than the old afternoon nap time. He used to wake up around 4 or 4:30 - have some milk - 5:30ish have dinner. Well now he wakes up around 3ish. So if he has dinner an hour or hour and a half after he wakes up he'd be eating at 4... so that doesn't work. I have to figure out some sort of consistent snack/smoothie thing I guess.

 

I figure it will take us a couple of weeks for the kinks to work out. One thing is for sure I feel like our afternoons are so much longer. I'm worried he's bored. I swear we do every activity twice and it will be a total of a 1/2 hour. I don't know why it feels so different, but it does. Losing that hour in the morning and then the moved up afternoon naptime just really switched things up. I'm sure I felt this way with every change, but now that he looks more to me for entertainment I feel the pressure :) I have to step up my game (no wonder so many people pin toddler activity ideas on pinterest). If I don't it is going to feel like a weird toddler version of Ground Hog Day EVERY DAY.  I wonder if I can talk him into a 1/2 hour of snuggle/hug time... doubt it... I think at this point I'm the only one that can't get enough of that activity.