The End of the World: Dropping Naps

I thought it would be the end of the world when Z stopped taking his afternoon nap. Has anyone noticed the world ending? So it turns out life moves on and I've found ways to adapt.

For almost a year, Z hasn't been going right to sleep when we put him to bed. Thankfully we got through the phase where he wouldn't stay in his room or in his bed. So we put him to bed at 8:30pm and he would read and play in his bed until 9:30 or 9:45pm. I knew that the afternoon nap was contributing to it, but when he missed his afternoon nap he got SOO cranky by 6/7pm. I figured we were in a transition phase and decided to put him down for a nap and get one when I could, knowing he would be up making noise (and perhaps requiring some interaction) until 9 or 10pm. If you know me, then you know I also grabbed a nap at the same time, thus, my desire to keep Z's nap as long as I could.

I continued my wishful nap thinking for a good six months where he would miss a nap maybe once or twice a week. And I figured out that I could sleep even when Z doesn't. This involves ear plugs and my head between two pillows. Since the personal sacrifice (no nap for me) was no longer as much of an issue, I recently decided to let him decide whether he wanted to take a nap. I told him he had to stay in his room for quiet play time or to sleep. I think the novelty of not having to take a nap motivated him to stay in his room. There were a few times I had to tell him to go back, but he has been pretty good about staying in there. For the first week he played for a little while (maybe 30-40 minutes) and then put himself to sleep. We're in the third week now and he has not gone to sleep once this week. I have him stay in his room for an hour and half to two hours and I manage to catch a 30-45 minute nap. Z is doing better with more sleep at night and he isn't getting unbearably cranky in the evening. It just took some adjustment time to get over the crabby hump.

At the same time, Harper has pretty much dropped her morning nap. She'll be 16 months at the end of this week. Unlike with Z, I could hardly wait for her to drop the morning nap because it makes things easier. Without the nap, we can all go out and do things and we're not stuck at home so much. Also, she is sleeping longer in the afternoon, so that gives me more time to do my stuff or to hang out with just Z. She is so easy-going still that even when she is pretty tired, and could have taken a morning nap, she isn't overly cranky. Sometimes I try to get her down a little earlier than 1pm for her nap, but it's not critical. I'm looking forward to some fun things we can do this summer with the whole morning uninterrupted!

No nap for Z has brought on new challenges, which I'll save for another post. But I guess I'm glad we've gone through another milestone and I see yet again how we can all adjust and adapt. And it never is really as bad as I think it's going to be.