My favorite time of day is when 1pm rolls around so I can tuck Gabriel into my bed and tell him, "See you in two hours, love ya!" Not that I don't love him while he's awake, but let's just be honest, he's a handful. Between him and Jonas, there are days when I'm literally counting down the minutes until they will both be blissfully asleep and I can catch up on whatever needs catching up on or just have a little me time.
Believe me, I don't want to lose the nap. I've been holding on tight to this time because I do still think he needs it, but I also don't want to keep having to stay up until 11pm anymore. I mean, what the heck is a 3-year old child doing staying up until that ungodly hour? I don't even like staying up that late and I'm old!
We've tried everything to get him to sleep at a decent hour in his own bed - coercion (I swear you can have jelly beans in the morning if you will pleasefortheloveofgod get in bed!), yelling, offering up everything but our souls, laying with him until he falls asleep, reading about 234,640,379 books and spanking. None of it works. We've been down this bedtime road before. Somehow it fixed itself. It looks like this time we'll have to play some hardball.
Not to mention he fights to the death come nap time to find any way not to have to lay down. He'll play, scream, throw himself on the floor, cry and find excuses to get up. But!! He needs it! I know he does, because by 4pm it's like we've unleashed the kraken or something. He becomes this little monster child that loses his ish in an instant.
So,
I have a feeling this might be comparable to sleep training an infant. Lots of crying and nobody really gets any sleep.
Anybody have any brilliant ideas that might save our precious nap time, but still have him sleeping at night?
Maybe an earlier nap? We have had to push up Ants naptime too because we were doing 1pm naps and he was being put in bed at 830 like normal but sitting in his bed singing, talking, God knows what else until about 10pm. Maybe try giving him his nap at 11 so he still gets that rest but isnt SO rested and charged up once night time comes.
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