An Afternoon Siesta

Recently Lily has transitioned to one nap a day, finally relinquishing her morning nap and taking one long afternoon siesta.  If I'm being honest, part of me misses my alone time in the morning. Like whoa.

However, what made me know she was ready was her.  She'd happily lay down late morning and fall asleep for a couple hours, but then she'd be Super CrankyPants {that's one of her superhero names} by mid afternoon until bedtime.  Like epic suppertime meltdown if she couldn't get her food quickly enough, get a bath and in bed.  The tough thing with that is it's still light out pretty late now. So, 6:30pm was rough.  Add an 8 year old who apparently needs 3925720428308 things equally as many times out of the bedroom which lead to equally as many wakeups for Lily, my happy baby was having a rough go of sleep. 

I tried a couple different combinations of having her nap a shorter time in the morning, then still having her nap in the afternoon.  That was an afternoon jumparoo in the crib for the duration and lots of, "Maaaaaaammmaaaaaaaa!" calling trying to sweet talk me into getting up.  Even though I recognize she still needed the down time, that combo wasn't working out for either of us.  She was still beyond tired by suppertime.

Finally, we tried skipping the morning nap all together and just trying an afternoon which has been totally working for her.  Andrew was a two-a-day napper well past two years old, but he was also a 6am riser until he was like 10.   I appreciate that the basics have worked for both of them and recognize they're two different people who have needed what works for them individually.

This new schedule of no morning nap had its whiny moments as the clock hit the noon hour at first.  Girl was ex.hausted!  But, the 3 and a half hours of sleepytime for her and downtime for me was heaven!  After some adjustments, we're successfully into a new routine that is working for her. She usually hits her wall about 12:00pm. If I say, "Lily, are you ready for lunch?" she heads to her highchair, "Eat. Eat. Mama. Eat."  She eats lunch, gets cleaned up and off to bed for a minimum of two hours, but usually three or so.  It's perfect and just like nearly everything with her, she transitions easily into what's next.

Yesterday during naptime, she apparently decided that she didn't want her arm in her jammies. {yes, most some days we spend the day in pajammies} then when realizing it, she didn't like it. I laughed.

Happy napping!