Lucy has been working herself out of her afternoon naps. To me it feels like it's about time, since she will be turning five in about two months, but she has never really been a very good night sleeper, so making up a few hours of sleep during the day has been essential to survival and sanity for us.
But she is growing out of this need. We've seen this in the fact that on the days she does take a nap, bedtime goes on and on and on. She's not tired at bedtime, and therefore we hear the telltale "Mooooommmmmyyyy" or "Daaaadddddyyyy" every twenty minutes or so until we go to bed. It's draining and frustrating.
So I've been in favor of cutting her naps out for a while, but that made our afternoons rough. Until a couple weeks ago.
So needless to say, we've discovered that bedtime goes much smoother on the no-nap days, she sleeps better through the night, and she is getting to the point where she can generally hold her emotions in check through dinnertime. It's a win for us all.
Yesterday we had plans to have dinner at a friend's house, and in the effort to keep peace while spending time with them, we suggested that Lucy take an afternoon nap.
She slept for a solid two hours.
Dinner was great. No complaining, no tears, no signs of tiredness. It was fabulous!
Then came bedtime.
She went to bed without complaint, but she did call down the stairs several times with various requests -- a stuffed animal that had been left on the couch, adjusting the nightlight, etc. Every so often we would hear thud, thud, thud, thud as she ran across her room and back, but we chose not to check on what she was doing.
Eventually it quieted down and we assumed she was asleep. So, an hour after he had officially tucked her in, John went to check on her.
Her room was clean.
She was still awake, but on the verge of finally falling asleep, and she told John, "I want it to be clean for Grandma when she comes on Tuesday, so I thought I'd clean up since I wasn't sleepy yet."
Sounds perfectly logical to me!
I still can't decide if I should be upset that she was getting out of bed repeatedly, or if I should be proud that she used her time well to clean up her very messy room... I think we all won in this situation, but either way, I think we'll skip the nap again today.
The Master Gardener
4 years ago
2 comments:
Ah, the joys of nap transitions! I feel your pain!
Ha, great story. Sage dropped her nap about 6 months ago, but I still enforce an hour of "rest time". We bought her a princess digital clock and I always set it for 1:00. She has now learned that she can come out of her room at 2:00. She does pretty well with it. So, she doesn't sleep but she colors, or reads, or plays quietly (she has never cleaned her room, however!). It works well for us. Just something to try! :) We need to get together soon! -Lora
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