Losing naps

We are starting to lose naps here and it's not as bad as I thought. In fact, it's flexible, which is great for when our routine is not so routine.

Eli is sometimes dropping his morning catnap, surviving the drive to Tobey's school without falling asleep. Even if we stay at the park for lunch and play with schoolmates, he will just konk out in the car on the way home and sleep for a couple of hours. And he's transferrable!

Tobey occasionally can do without a nap too. We discovered this on the action packed days when Kelsey & Morgan were visiting. He did fine all weekend without a nap, or maybe that one day when he konked out for an hour on the futon. And now, on non-school days, Tobey can go all afternoon with no nap AND not be in such danger of putting himself to sleep at 5PM. But I've discovered that on school days, especially days where we also stay at the park for extra play time, he still needs a nap. I've kind of tried the New Hampshire Chang ritual of a quiet time for when Tobey doesn't nap. But I find that if he has an hour alone in his room to play quietly, he will end up putting himself to sleep. If I'm trying to keep him awake, his quiet time works best in the common area.

So if Tobey loses his nap then that means that I sometimes lose mine. It's not as bad as I thought. For one thing, sometimes I can still sneak in a nap because Tobey finds it "big boy" like to stay up and play by himself in the playroom while I snooze on the couch. The other day I put him in front of Cars for 90 min. while Eli and I napped. And if I do lose my nap, I'm finding that he really likes to help in the kitchen. So sometimes I can actually prep dinner or we can do something fun like lemon cookies or rice krispy treats. It's a special fun time without the chaos that is Eli.

But I love sleep and I will miss the day that I really do lose my nap.