I’m sitting here in my boys’ room waiting for them to fall asleep. I only have Eddie and the little boy I babysit (K). Dennis and Mr. A. don’t nap so they are in the living room doing who knows what. I don’t hear screaming…that’s a good thing.
But here I sit. Talking to ya’ll. Eddie keeps sitting up or kicking the bed above him. I tell him to lay down and be quiet. He laughs.
The hubby tells me it’s because I’m not “serious” enough. I don’t know how else to be serious. Yelling to lay down and shut the hell up seems pretty no nonsense to me.
I have to sit in here at nap time otherwise they just run amok and nobody gets a nap. My sanity can’t survive with that option. It’s actually kinda nice sitting here in the dark, alone with my thoughts. Until Eddie quietly positions himself closer to the window and starts fidgeting again.
*sigh*
Me and Bob talk about this a lot. He thinks everyone needs to still be napping. But the non-nappers will be awake till 10pm if they were to be forced into a nap. I would rather have no nap and a peaceful bedtime. Bedtime is mommy’s beer time. I don’t want them interfering with that!
So, how do you survive nap time? How old were your kids when you finally gave them up? I would love some fresh ideas here.
I feel for you. Our son stopped napping at about 2 1/2 and Kaydence is getting close to giving up her daily nap now. She’ll be 2 this summer, so only a few months left.
Use a “new” phrase and call it rest time. We use this in our house. I homeschool and things can get crazy at times, I have 4. My 2 year old still naps and thankfully shows no signs of giving it up. My others (most days) take quiet time the first hour that she is in bed. They are 5, 6, and 9 and all boys! They may read/look at books (sometimes I let them color, or play with ONE quiet toy) IN their beds. They have rest time for about 1 hour. Sometimes they are just resting, but on days they need it, they have been know to fall asleep (esp. my 9 year old). It is also quiet time for the whole house. I get to do something quiet…work on my home business (I’m an Independent Consultant for Tastefully Simple), computer, read, sew, or take a much needed nap. It works for our house. It may work for you because then your youngest will not feel like he is missing out on something the older one is doing while he’s sleeping.
Hope something in there helps. Oh, one bad day, I even added 10 minutes to their rest time every time I had to tell them to be quiet! They didn’t like that!
Garilyn