It seems like things have been pretty much the same around here for the past few months. But not for long.
About a week ago, both twins stopped wanting to nap. At first, I thought it was a fluke. Gianna has been fighting naps for a long time. Some days she would nap, some days she never went to sleep. It was about 50/50. But Maya? Maya would always nap if given the opportunity!
Until a week ago.
Now, both are not wanting to nap. They will lay in their beds upstairs, just talking and giggling for a long time. I've tried just about everything to get them to sleep, even sitting in their room with them for an hour. They just aren't tired.
I'm very aware of how lucky I am that my almost 4 year olds have still been napping. Most of the girls' friends don't nap. But I loved nap time! It was my only time during the day to myself. I could do laundry in peace without 'help', I could watch one of my shows on Netflix, I could take a nap or read a book.
I'm thinking that I'll still insist on some 'quiet time', where the girls read or play quietly by themselves for a while. The problem is that they will have to do it in the living room. And I know they will need to ask me a million things during that time.
There are benefits to not napping.
- Olivia will sleep more. She won't have her noisy sisters waking her up. And I know she needs more sleep.
- I'll have some time with just the twins. We can do some crafts and activities that I've shied away from because of having Olivia around. She insists on doing everything her big sisters do.
- I'm going to move up bedtime. Lately, bedtime has been around 8:30pm for the girls. I'm thinking we can slowly move it back up to 7:30pm.
- I need to break Olivia of her pacifier. It will be a lot easier if the twins aren't trying to nap while she's upstairs, screaming like a banshee for her paci.
So the era of no naps is upon me. I think I'll survive, but only time will tell. :)
4 comments:
B is 4 and I still encourage him to take naps. He does attend school 3days per week in the afternoon so he does not nap on those days. But what I've found has helped encourage him to nap is that I moved nap time back until about 1 or 2pm. He will usually fall asleep easier and faster if its at the later time. Otherwise he will fight it.
Peytonn is almost 6 and in school full time during the week. But on the weekends he has quiet time. I usually put him in our room with a show on TV and allow him to take a few cars up there with him. He will stay in there for about 1-2 hours.
I still need that 'quiet time' and so do the kids. SOmetime you just have to either adjust how you work 'quiet/nap time' or figure out what activities they are going to do during that time.
Hang in there!! Its all about stages and phases. :)
My girls are 18 months, and trying to get them to nap is becoming harder and harder, especially when I just need that 20 minutes to get myself together. But you are right, the benefits of not naping is that when it is time to go to sleep, they will go down easy. I love the name Maya, one of my twins is name Mya too.
Read about their 18 months thus far at http://preemietwinsandme.blogspot.com/2013/01/mya-and-milani-18-months.html
The dudes fight naps on occasion-it is SO hard. But they do usually go to bed earlier on those nights. Good luck!
We still did quiet time at our house too. It was for an hour, and the had the choice...they could sleep or they play quietly in their rooms. When we moved to our new house, that was a little trickier because they shared a room...so we just put them in two different locations. Sometimes they would sleep and sometimes they wouldn't. They always looked forward to their "time alone" and I did too LOL :)
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