Naps, where are you?
I knew that Sarah Graves would start to transition away from her morning nap about 15 months old, but this seems to be going a little differently than I imagined. I know, what part of being a parent goes the way I imagined, right? Last week she started resisting her afternoon nap some by laying in her bed and talking and playing most of her naptime. She would get a little fussy at times, but never all out crying. I referred to my helpful sleep book and read that at this age, if the morning nap is too long they will begin to resist the afternoon nap. That made sense to me. They need the afternoon nap because that is the deeper more restorative sleep and children typically give up their morning nap, but keep the afternoon nap.
The book offers several suggestions to help this situation. One is to cut the morning nap short at about an hour (she would sleep for nearly 3). Another suggestion is to move the morning nap back about 10 minutes a day until you get the morning nap synced up with the afternoon nap. The other option is to cut out the morning nap and just do stimulating activities in the morning to help them stay awake until time for an afternoon nap. Mom tried just letting her sleep for an hour and that didn't help the afternoon nap. She actually laid in her bed for about 2 hours talking and relaxing until it was time to get up. Yesterday mom tried just skipping the morning nap and putting her down for the afternoon nap about an hour earlier than normal. We thought she would sleep longer than usual because she didn't have that morning nap, but she only slept for 2 hours. She was in a good mood last night and didn't seem bothered by getting less sleep during the day.
Mom was actually telling me a funny story about how tired she was during the morning. Mom needed to keep her contained for a bit while she got ready so she sat her in her crib with some toys. SG started out thumbing through a book and enjoying herself. At one point Mom looked over and saw that she had her lovie, her paci, and her blankie and was standing at the edge of the crib and laying her head down on the side of the crib! She is such a doll!
We'll see how this one nap a day plan continues! I want her to be happy no matter how little or long she is awake.
The book offers several suggestions to help this situation. One is to cut the morning nap short at about an hour (she would sleep for nearly 3). Another suggestion is to move the morning nap back about 10 minutes a day until you get the morning nap synced up with the afternoon nap. The other option is to cut out the morning nap and just do stimulating activities in the morning to help them stay awake until time for an afternoon nap. Mom tried just letting her sleep for an hour and that didn't help the afternoon nap. She actually laid in her bed for about 2 hours talking and relaxing until it was time to get up. Yesterday mom tried just skipping the morning nap and putting her down for the afternoon nap about an hour earlier than normal. We thought she would sleep longer than usual because she didn't have that morning nap, but she only slept for 2 hours. She was in a good mood last night and didn't seem bothered by getting less sleep during the day.
Mom was actually telling me a funny story about how tired she was during the morning. Mom needed to keep her contained for a bit while she got ready so she sat her in her crib with some toys. SG started out thumbing through a book and enjoying herself. At one point Mom looked over and saw that she had her lovie, her paci, and her blankie and was standing at the edge of the crib and laying her head down on the side of the crib! She is such a doll!
We'll see how this one nap a day plan continues! I want her to be happy no matter how little or long she is awake.
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