The Great Nap Debate

It is on going, this Great Nap Debate. To nap or not to nap. That is the question.

Ugh. SO sick of that question. My life has seemingly revolved around those 6 words for 3 years, 4 months. Did she nap? Is she napping? Will she be awake in time? Did she fall asleep in the car? What time was her last nap? How long did she sleep? As the mother of 2 kids 3 and under, naps take up a lot of my thought process and my time.

We are on the brink of dropping Kate's morning nap all together. Occassionally she gets one, but about 5 days a week she goes without. I was quite a bit more anxious to have Kate drop that morning nap than I was for Meg to drop it . . . when I just had one kid, that morning naptime is when I showered, ate, read email, got ready for the day. Meg napped in the morning until sometime past 18 months old. But when it's your second child that is the morning napper, it's a bit harder. You get used to taking care of your out-of-the-house activities in the morning . . . but then baby #2 comes along, and you are house bound again from 9:00-10:30am. Anyway, Kate is doing fine with the lack of morning sleep. The only time she actually gets to rest is when we are home doing nothing and I take advantage of a little morning break. She'll only sleep an hour or so, then she's up and ready to go.

As usual, Kate is a piece of cake. She has transitioned easily and with no fuss.

The BIG nap debate around here is Meg. Ah, the big sister. She is showing many of the signs that she is ready to give up her afternoon nap, but I think I'm totally in denial. NO nap? That means no break from both girls in the middle of the day. That idea is very scary.

This has really been going on for over a month now, but . . . like I said . . . total denial. It started when I was noticed that Meg was staying up very late in her bed at night. We'd put her to bed at her usual 7:30-7:45pm, but she would still be awake in her bed at 9:00pm. She never cried or fussed . . . but she'd talk, sing, kick her wall, toss around. She was still WIDE awake. I knew something was up. Why was she staying up so late? And should I care -- since she wasn't bothering anyone?

I debated dropping the nap then. They say that late bed times are a big sign that the afternoon nap is no longer necessary. Jim suggested that I just late her stay up a little later in the evening in an effort to keep the serenity of the mid-day 'ME' time. That sounded like a much better idea to me. So, we adjusted our evenings, and Meg was allowed to say up until about 8:00-8:30pm. We tried it for a while, and it seemed to work out well.

Now, several weeks later, I'm noticing that Meg is sleeping very late. She's not getting up until after 8:00am, which makes it really tough to get her up and dressed and fed before we leave for preschool at 8:45am. (I'm here solo, mind you -- it's just me and the girls in the mornings, so it takes me a while to get everyone up and fed.) She is also taking her naps later and later in the day . . . which is just messing up scheduling all around.

And the naps are not what they once were, either. You could not tell from the Pumpkin Patch pictures, but getting Meg up and out the door for that adventure was a terrible experience. She'd taken a nap too late and did NOT want to wake up. Now I know how parents of teenagers must feel . . . when your kid dosen't want to get up, they will not get up. And there is little you can do. You can't yell at them -- well, not at a 3 yr old, anyway -- because it does nothing to help the situation. You can't physically get them up because they'll just fight you every step of the way. After a long battle to get out the door to the pumpkin patch, I said to Jim, "We would have been better off without a nap."

I've thought about that for 48 hours now. Is the nap really worth all of this? She's really trying to tell me she does not need the daytime sleep any more. Should I give in and work with her on dropping that nap?

Selfishly, I don't want to! I have to be home for an afternoon nap for Kate, anyway . . . and having Meg nap at the same time is so convenient. I worked very VERY hard to align their nap schedules so that I could have just a little break mid-day.

But why should I torture myself and Meg with a nap she doesn't want or need? The 'ME' time is not worth all the other hassles I'm getting . . . fights to get dressed for preschool, whining when she has to go to bed because she's not tired yet.

And so I decided today that I'd let Meg skip her nap. I'd try it. Tuesdays are Dance Class days, and we always try to squeeze the nap in . . . but I was not about to wake her up to go to Dance. Not after Sunday's horrors. I though today was a good day to test out letting her stay up all afternoon. Minus the nap, we went straight to Dance after baby sister woke up from her afternooon snooze. It all worked out perfectly . . . Meg enjoyed Dance and was not even that tough to deal with in the evening. She was in bed before 8pm tonight, and I know that she was OUT shortly after. The kid was pooped.

No nap really wasn't that big of a deal at all.

Does this mean that we are about to embark on a sea of days with no naps? Hours and hours of Meg in the afternoons? And what on EARTH do I do to keep her entertained (and out from in front of the TV) between 1pm and 3pm??

The Great Nap Debate continues . . .