After 3 days of skipping the morning nap (on purpose) this morning my daughter basically demanded "nigh, night"
Over the last few weeks, Sophie has been playing in her crib before she falls asleep. Its been adorable to listen too, however what was at first only a few minutes has grown to over an hour before each nap.
This got me to thinking;
1) she is clearly not tired enough when I put her down to fall asleep.
2) that adds up to 2 hours a day that she's playing in her crib when she could be playing with me.
BJ and I have been waffling about stopping the morning nap, (once she falls asleep both naps are still well over an hour), but finally at the end of last week we decided we'd give it a try.
Friday Sophie and I had a coffee date so skipping the morning nap was easy. We were home in time for an early lunch and Sophie took a nice 3 hour nap.
BJ was home Saturday and Sunday so it was pretty easy to keep Sophie up and happy in the morning. We moved lunch to 11-11:30 and Sophie was in her crib asleep by noon.
Then this morning we were playing in my room when she laid down on the carpet, looked at me and said, "nigh, night." It was 9:30 which was her usual nap time.
I picked her up and told her we were gonna go for a walk. We came down stairs, but before we left I had to feed Monti. As we went into the kitchen she started clapping and giggling, until she realized I wasn't making a bottle. I grabbed her coat and before I could put it on her she started crying and saying, "nigh, night! nigh, night!"
My poor baby!
We went to the kitchen, made a bottle (she giggled when she saw it) and went upstairs to rock (she sang "nigh, night" all the way up). She was just about asleep when she finished her bottle and was asleep within minutes of putting her in her crib.
I only let her sleep about 45 min, hoping that she would go down quickly this afternoon (it worked), but now the question is what do we do tomorrow?
Sleep is something I'm a bit sensitive about (if I don't get enough I have a very hard time being kind to anyone), if Sophie tells me she needs to sleep then I think she needs to sleep. At the same time, I think she would do better with just 1 nap.
So we will take it slow and see what happens.
Nap transitions are tough!!! (Probably didn't help that there was so much excitement around the house last night *smile*)...but you are on it! Taking it one day at a time and watching and listening to her is your best bet. I LOVE that you are blogging :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jennifer that nap transitions are tough. Both of my boys dropped their afternoon nap, not their morning nap when theey went down to one nap. With Liam, he basically started sleeping longer and longer in the morning and fighting his afternoon nap. Ben just never slept so he was kind of a different problem.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, Liam started with napping at 9:30am, and that being his only nap of the day. I gradually shifted his nap time later and later (think 5-15 minute increments) until it was at 1pm after 4-5 months later. It was a long transition and he still sometimes fell asleep in the car in the afternoons. In any case, that is my advice. I also don't advise walks to stretch the awake time...Liam always slept during those. ;-) I used playdates to stretch Liam during the transition of moving his 1 nap to the middle of the day.