Newborns sleep all the time, and almost anywhere. But as they age they become much more finicky about naps! We're lucky that Emma naps well…but only in her crib (either at home or a pack n play in a quiet room while on travel)…not out and about at all. No stroller naps, and very few car seat naps. Neither of my kids are the kind that you see sleeping in a shopping cart while out at a store.
Anyway, as a result, if we want to take an outing and not interrupt her nap schedule, we're pretty much limited to a few short times of day to get out. First thing in the morning, around lunch time (after her morning nap, but before her afternoon nap), or in the evening. Each of those time slots is just 2-3 hours as well, so long outings are not common for us right now unless we plan on letting her skip one of her naps. If that is the case, we may have a long morning outing, but since Evan still naps in the afternoon (most days) we try to be home for both of them to nap in the late afternoon.
It takes so long to get both kids ready and out the door that an outing "first thing" in the morning is not very easy. One morning I thought of getting out "first thing" to the grocery store. That trip ended up seriously intruding upon her morning nap time, such that by the time we got home and I nursed her (this was back when I was still nursing)…she still didn't seem tired and it was already nearly lunch time so I figured I'd just keep her up. It worked out that day…and so we thought she may soon be ready to drop her morning nap. And we thought that might be nice to open up the whole morning schedule too (whoa…what a concept!), however that has not happened yet. If we're home and put her down for a morning nap, she sleeps well still. Goes down very easy too. And if we are out and she skips her morning nap, she's very cranky by noon time and/or sleepy on the car ride home. So for now we continue to have the "busy" schedule that revolves around the kids' schedule of two naps a day.
On some days, Evan's naps are becoming more of a quiet time in his room than a sleeping nap. It goes in waves, but at the worst it was probably about half of the naps in a week that he didn't truly sleep (and eventually tells us "I'm done"). These last few weeks it seems he's gotten back into a good nap time sleeping habit though. Either way, our afternoons are going to remain blocked out for nap/quiet time at home probably for quite awhile yet I'm afraid, so even when Emma does drop the morning one, we'll still be living a schedule that revolves around a the kids' schedule.
Maybe in a few more years we'll start to have more time for other stuff again. Oh wait, the other stuff will be things like driving them around to activities such as soccer, swimming, dance, music lessons, etc. So I guess our schedule will still revolve around the kids' schedules….hmmm, maybe I should cherish these days when their schedule involves more naps. :)
1 comment:
I'm kind of dreading when Jack needs crib naps, lol. Right now he's still willing to sleep on the go and it makes it so easy. Meanwhile Nora has pretty much dropped her nap which means we can go somewhere in the afternoon if we want to, though we usually do quiet time.
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