Please don't nap!

When my boys were younger I LOVEDDDD nap time! I mean who doesn't? The get a much needed rest, wake up in a better mood, and seem so much more themselves.

Blake was a really good napper when he was young. I could look forward to two solid naps with no question from him. Even when he cut it back to one nap it was a 1-2 hour nap. Blake gave up napping around 2.5 years old. I fought it, but he just wanted nothing to do with it from then on. So I adjusted his bedtime and he just went to bed earlier.

Colby was never a really good napper. He did take two naps until he was about one. This was nice because he was taking two naps while Blake was still taking one. This gave me time alone with Blake while Colby took his morning nap, and time alone while they both napped in the afternoon. Colby gave up his nap all together a few weeks after he turned two. Yes, you read that right. Again I fought it, but it just wasn't happening.

I set in place a solid bedtime routine for my boys. For a long time they went to bed at 6:30pm and slept until just after 7:15am. I was content with this. I could handle it since I still got a big block of time at night. As they've gotten older I've shifted their bedtime slightly. We usually start bedtime about 6:45/7:oo. We aim to say goodnight to them before 7:30 so that they are sound asleep by 8pm. This works for us. The boys both sleep until about 7:15/7:30.

But the challenge is when they fall asleep during the day. Yes, I know most parents get excited when their child naps... not me! With Blake if he falls asleep during the day it means he is sick. That is the only time he naps. Colby will fall asleep in the car sometimes. What does it mean if they take a nap? It means bedtime hell!

Yesterday we were driving home from my parents house. Colby fell asleep in the car and did not wake up when we got home. He proceeded to sleep for close to an hour.

We let the boys stay up a bit later than normal because Blake wanted to go for a bike ride with Richard and Colby didn't eat dinner until 6:45pm. So bedtime didn't start until close to 8. Well at 10:25pm I put Colby back to bed for the last time. What did this mean? A late night for me. A late night for Colby. And a grumpy mommy and child in the morning. I did not let him sleep in because well that would mean another tough night.

So now I don't like to see my boys nap... nope I cringe at it!

Naptime ... no more

I'm shocked to say this, but I decided it is best to let Colby give up his nap. He has been fighting it on and off for about a month. The days he didn't nap he went right to sleep at night, and the days he did nap he fought bedtime until after 8pm and sometimes as late as 9pm. I decided last night, after I posted my blog, that I can't force him to nap just so I get a bit of time alone. I really feel it is best for him to get a good night sleep. So now, both boys go down around 6:30 with the hopes of them both asleep by 7pm. Yes, it might sound early, but they get up between 6:30 and 7am so they are getting 12 hours of sleep which is what they need. I just can't believe that my 2 year 2 month old is no longer napping.

The other positive with this is it frees up our days immensely. I don't have to worry about getting home in time for nap time. We can do more as a family on the weekends without the worry of a needed nap. It just means we have to be home and settled for bedtime for both boys.

Now I just have to figure out when I get to watch my tv shows and what to do with Colby all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today was tough because it was raining alllllll day so we couldn't get out to play. I forgot how many things you have to do to entertain a two year old by yourself all day.

I hope you got a chance to check out my Tasty Tuesday recipe today... if not click here and check out some yummy cookies!

***********************************************************************************
Today's goals:
-- get up to do p90x [nope we decided that we'd skip it since my sinuses are still a mess and Richard is out tonight]
-- go to the gym for pilates class [check, and Colby and I went to the parent child class after too]
-- menu plan [half check... it's almost done]
-- decide what desert I'm making for the party on Saturday [check... brownie bottom cheesecake]
-- convince Colby that he wants to take a nap [nope, but if you read the top of this post you knew that already]

Tomorrow's goals:

-- go to the Y with the boys

-- go get the boys' hair cut

-- go to the grocery store

-- dust the living room

-- figure out the cleaning and cooking schedule for Saturday's party

grrr!

well last night was a longggg night for me, but that isn't what I'm whining about today.

Blake went down for his nap at 10:30 (new nap time??) anyway.... I jumped in the shower and around 11:00 Colby wanted to nurse... ok fine.

around 11:10 the lawn people came to mow the lawn next door. now if Blake had been sleeping longer it wouldn't have mattered. Then the phone rings at 11:30

sooooo yeah no nap for Blake. I haven't let him out of his room just yet, but I need to soon (or else who knows what he may get into)

so I didn't get any downtime again today

schedule changes

Well my little guy is growing up! He finally has cut back to just one nap (with a little help). For a long time he was still looking for a short rest time around 9am (I think he would still go for that some days). It was a nice treat for me because I would put him in his room and he would rest/ play quietly / read and I got to take my shower. The challenge was that he would then only take a 1 hour nap in the early afternoon and then try to be up for the rest of the night. Yeah well that wasn't a good thing. You don't go from 2 naps totally 4-5 hours to less than 2 hours between your rest and nap time.

So the other day I decided to keep him up through his morning rest time (so long morning showers!) and put him down around 11:15 and then leave him there for at least 2 hrs if not more. Now if he had got totally upset I would have let him out of his room. Well the first day he stayed there for almost 2.5 hours and was soooo much better that night.

The next day... he slept for over 2 hours and I left him for another hour. Since then he has been napping for close to 3 hours a day.

He is waking a lot happier and isn't so tired when Richard gets home from work. He also is able to last until 7pm again without almost falling asleep in the living room. Which is nice because both Richard and Blake enjoy their time together at night.

The other plus is Blake will have had about a month of this schedule before the baby is born so I can then work around the schedule once the baby is on his own schedule. My goal is to have alone time with each boy and maybe, just maybe 30 min to myself??

update on toddler bed

Well... the toddler bed transition seems to be going smoothly (ok I haven't tried getting him to sleep there at night yet, but hey it's a transition right!). Saturday I put him down for a nap in the crib since we were having people over and I needed him to have a good nap (and an early nap), but later he took an hour nap in the toddler bed. Richard was impressed at how well he did in it.

Sunday he took both his morning and afternoon naps in the toddler bed.

It is nice now because he doesn't fuss at all when I bring him in there. He will play for a bit and then gets up on the bed and takes a nap. When he wakes up he comes into the hallway and waits for me to come to the kitchen. Sometimes he will just stand there and other times he will just start talking away until I come to get him.

Now we just need another gate so I don't have to keep moving the one that goes at the bottom of the stairs each time I put him down and get him up!

Toddler bed take 2

Ok well I was going to skip a day posting about the toddler bed, buttttt...

First let me update you on yesterday. After about 2 hours I put him in the crib and he still only slept for about 30 min. Needless to say he went to bed early last night... and CRASHED!

Today he went down for his nap at 11 and fussed for what felt like a nanosecond! I found him like this at 11:30

So, I guess he figured out what that thing was for!

As I said I would do.... here are a few other pics of his bed

toddler bed take 1

Well we put Blake's toddler bed in his room last night. Richard, Blake and I played and read stories on/next to it before he went to sleep last night. Then this morning Blake and I played with the felt cars for the headboard. I managed to get him to skip his morning rest time so he'd be tired for his afternoon nap. I brought him in and put him on the toddler bed and he got very upset. So I stayed with him for a bit and rubbed his stomach and sang with him to calm him down. Then the phone rang so I told him I had to go answer it and he should close his eyes and get some rest. Yeah well that wasn't in his plans, but in less than 5 min he was quiet. I check on him and found him like this...

yes that is on the floor next to his closet... sort of near the toddler bed! so being the good mommy I am I first went and go my camera to take a picture of him. Then I tried to move him... oops that didn't work.

I got him back on the bed and settled down again and told him to lay down and rest. I'm sure he was off the bed before I even left the room. He was upset for less than 3 min. But, he didn't sleep... I could hear him playing and talking away. Then he got quiet... ok I'm going to go check in a min... nope he began screaming at that time.

So I go back in again and he's fine. I tell him to get up on the bed and lay down and he did without hesitation, but he wanted to read. So we read a book and I sat with him a minute or two and then said... ok you rest. I'll see you when you wake up. He fussed that time for less than a minute, but as of now still hasn't gone to sleep.

We will see!!

(I'll try to remember to take a pic of the bed in the room when he's awake to show you later)

Back on track

As a teacher you realize that after a break, long weekend, and sometimes just after a normal weekend... it takes a bit to get back on track. You know this is important, you know that it will make everything soooo much easier to deal with, you know that it is what you and the children need and want... buttttt it is so hard sometimes to get there. In my classroom I had what I called a flexible schedule... we did everything on the board (I wrote out the day each day on the board) but I never really planned how long any specific activity would take. The children also adjusted to some minor tweaks if something took a bit longer and we had to move activities because of lunch or specials.

The last few weeks we have been so busy with this, that and the other thing that Blake had gotten off schedule (of course the fact that he had a molar cutting through at the SAME time didn't help at all!). As I've talked about in the past, Blake doesn't have a super strict schedule/routine. But, he still needs to have a specific order to his day (not necessarily time, but order). In a lot of ways I let him pick the time frames he naps and eats (to a degree), but it is in a window of time (for example: sometimes between 8:15 and 9:00 he goes down for his morning nap). When we are busy he is more active and therefore has a harder time slowing down to stay on track. Plus when we are going we may not always be home for his windows of time... throwing off the rest of the day.

Well the last few days Blake seems to be back on schedule (whatever that is for the day). He is again sleeping through the night which makes my life a wholeeeee lot easier! But, as Andrea mentioned in her blog yesterday (about herself of course)... now I'm not sleeping through the night just for the fact that well... I'm pregnant. (Oh and our dog thinks that when I'm up she gets to be up... yeah not fun)

Now if he could decide which is his long nap time. Yesterday he slept 1 hour in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon. Today he went down at 8:30am and here it is 11:05am and he is still sound asleep. I try to do stuff around the house when he takes his 3 hour nap and then rest/watch tv during his 1 hour nap, but it is hard to plan that when I don't know which nap is going to be which. At one point I tried waking him up from his morning nap after an hour, but that didn't always mean he wanted to take a long afternoon nap... and if he didn't take a long afternoon nap he was not fun to be around in the early evening.

Oh well... guess it is just one more thing getting me ready for a newborn in the house... unpredictably!

more naptime comments

Last night was a rough night for Blake (ok for me too)... he decided at 4am that he did NOT want to sleep in his crib... not that he didn't want to sleep... he wanted to sleep in my arms. By 5am I was tired of playing the lets try the crib again game so I brought him out to the couch (might as well be comfortable too right?) and let him sleep until Richard came to check on me at 6:30.

Soooo... what did I do today during Blake's morning nap??

--mop the floor... now that he sits at the table I seem to have to do this a LOT more often!

--took a shower... can't skip that

--did my blog--- checked out the other's I'm following too

--posted and read here

--washed and folded 1 load of laundry

--baked chocolate chip cookies

--scheduled my glucose test

ummm yeah no nap

and now he is down for his afternoon nap... but that one isn't as long so I

--got the mail

--brought in the trash barrels

--played games on-line

--uploaded pics from yesterday

--made a scrapbook page:

I'm so going to pay later!

Nap time changes

As a teacher I always loved to do thing related to holidays with my class, but at the same time I dreaded holiday because they always through the children for a loop. It seemed that every holiday meant that they were off schedule both at home (hahaha... that's if they have some semblance of a schedule at home) and school. It always took a few days to get back into the swing of things, back on track academically, behaviorally, and all those fun -ly's that come with classrooms.

As a mom, I try very hard to keep my little one on schedule over the weekends, and on holidays... it just doesn't always work! The fact that well... Blake is always changing his schedule plays a roll in it. It's almost like he can't decide if he wants his long nap in the morning or in the afternoon. For a while I was only letting him sleep 1hr in the mornings then I was like... ok this is silly.... if he wants to sleep... why am I waking him up? Trust me I am NOT complaining that he is still willing to take 2 naps.

But, this makes it difficult to make plans with others. It makes it hard to make arrangements to go and do things. People do not always understand that Blake will not sleep in his carriage, he prefers not to sleep in his car seat (he will if he is reallyyyy tired), he will not sleep just anywhere... just like his mommy! He also likes the room to be dark and prefers quiet when he's falling asleep (not silence, but not noise...after he's asleep you could have a marching band go through his room and he may just stir a bit).

So this week we are finally getting back on track... Daddy's back at work (and driving himself), the holiday is over, and Mommy and Blake can do what we need to do to get back on routine. (until the weekend when Richard's parents come up for 4-5 days).