The Journey of Parenthood…

Dropping Britt’s Morning Nap

Britt has held onto having two naps a day for quite some time. Toddlerwise recommends dropping the morning nap between 16 and 18 months old (although most people I know drop it even earlier). I tried to slowly wean her down from the morning nap but it only made her cranky and miserable. Child just LOVES to sleep and that’s a good thing! She was still sleeping solid for the morning nap as well as solid for the afternoon one (although she would often take a bit to fall asleep for the afternoon nap and would often stay awake for a good 30 min or so when we put her to bed at night). 

Since Zach and I knew we were going to Cozumel I decided to wait until after we got home to drop the morning nap. Mrs. Charlotte was SO sweet to keep her on track with our potty training efforts when I had my foot surgery and I didn’t want to put the transition to one nap on her too! Kye dropped his morning nap three months sooner than Britt did. We did a slow transition with him and he, too, was fussy with the shorter morning nap. I decided when we got back from our trip that I would just drop the nap cold turkey and plan a lot of things to keep her busy to help with the transition!

You can read about when we dropped Kye’s morning nap HERE!

We originally planned to officially drop Britt’s morning nap on a Sunday (which is the same thing we did with Kye). Britt has been skipping the morning nap for awhile now on Sundays in order to make Bible Study and Church Services. We rush home from church at noonish, feed them lunch and then put her down for nap at 12:30. I ended up staying up super late the Friday night (Fri May 31st) prior to the Sunday we planned to drop it and Zach was sweet enough to let me sleep in that next morning and took the kids to run errands with him. We fed them lunch very early (like 11ish), swam as a family, and then put her to bed at 12:15 and she did great! 

Day 2 was the Sunday (June 2nd) and it was like a normal Sunday with her, she did totally fine. That following week I planned something fun for us to do every day to get us out of the house and keep her busy so she wouldn’t miss her nap as much! I fed them lunch around 11ish each day that week and had her down for nap by 12:30. She still slept until roughly 3:30 each afternoon and I did also notice she was falling asleep quicker at both nap and night time sleep. I knew for Kye going and doing when we dropped his nap made it easier for us all and kept him happy, it seemed to also work for Britt as well!

                                    

Monday (June 3rd): The kids and I went to Target to pick up some gifts for people and some other odds and ends (I mean it’s Target…you KNOW my cart ended up being full!) and then we went to the Dollar Store to get supplies for some Father’s Day goodies!

On the way home we hit up the car wash. My car needed it, and my kids loved the entertainment!

We even got home early enough to have lunch and then swim! We pretty much swim every day when the weather holds up. I will feed them lunch at 11ish so we have time to get sunscreened up after we eat and then hit the pool for twenty to thirty minutes prior to naps!

On Tuesday Robyn invited us to come swim with her and her kids at her mom’s house. We ate breakfast and did some puzzles to stay busy!

Then the kids had a BLAST swimming at Gigi’s! She has a beautiful pool and it was nice to get to visit while the kids played and enjoyed each other’s company! We even ate lunch over there and played some before coming home (and, of course, Britt had her first “in public” tee tee accident and I didn’t have any spare clothes haha).

Lorelai

Hahaha I tried to get one of them together!

On Wednesday I went to my yearly dr visit as well as a hair appointment! Got some “me time” while Zach stayed home with the kids for a couple hours. It was the first day Britt didn’t go anywhere but Zach kept them active all morning and he said she did pretty well. They survived anyway and I enjoyed getting a little break haha!

It rained that morning so they couldn’t go swimming which is hard on them. They both are OBSESSED with the pool and will CRY when we can’t swim. I dunno how we will survive this winter! Since it was just raining and not full on storming, Zach let them play outside in the rain! Such a fun daddy!

Thursday (June 6th) I got daring and did all of our Father’s Day prep stuff, there is going to be an entire post devoted to it. It was insane and I def learned a few lessons. Once we got it all cleaned up we headed to CFA. I HAD to get out of the house! We went at 10:30 and the kids played and played for awhile before I got them a kids meal to share (and I brought along other food for them and I don’t buy myself anything…gotta save that money!). Originally that day I planned to have some friends bring their kids over to swim but it rained and rained so we did the Father’s Day stuff and had fun just the three of us at CFA! We ended up running into a sweet friend of mine and visited with her and her girls over lunch so it worked out 🙂

Kye helped Britt get to the top of the playground for the first time on her own!

Big girl on the day she turned 18 months old!

She liked going up and down and up and down the steps

On Friday (June 7th) I had planned to take the kids to a local park for a picnic but….it rained. Little did I know then that the THEME of our summer around here would be RAIN. Keeping a toddler entertained for a solid 5 and 1/2 hours is rough. Thankfully we have a lot of active things to do in our house so I pulled it all out and let the kids go wild! We played a lot in the playroom and even brought in their push cars from the garage for them to play with 🙂

The transition for Britt from two naps down to one was SUPER easy. I’m glad I didn’t mess with the slowly weaning it thing and just dropped it all at once. When Kye went to one nap a day we kept his naptime at 12:30 for a long time but since I have two kids now and Kye naps at 1, I went ahead and pushed Britt’s back up to 1:00. She’s done great with it! Kye is almost 4 and 1/2 and he still sleeps from 1-4ish every day. Sometimes he will only sleep for a little bit, but most days he’s actually been sleeping until closer to 4:30! I LOVE that he loves his sleep and I’m thankful Britt does as well! She goes down at 1 and usually wakes up around 3:45 but will happily play in her crib until 4 if Kye is still asleep 🙂 

For Zach and I the one nap a day schedule is the MOST freedom we will have for a LONG time. Since we do want so many children and we plan to have them keep a nap until they are in all day school (which will be first grade hopefully) we are looking at at least ten more years of having the afternoon naps haha! Crazy! But I’m thankful for it as when else would I be able to blog? 😉 

I enjoy having our mornings free and the timing of it all worked out so great so we could go and do a lot this summer. On days when we are home though, it’s tough for Britt. She gets fussy still and is a little hard to keep entertained for long spans of time. We all def have more fun when we find reasons to leave the house for a little while and being able to swim in the pool also really helps her burn off some energy and stay happy 🙂 I’m not sure what I’ll do every day when Kye starts back at school! I’m sure I’ll come up with some type of solid routine for days we are at home though. I didn’t do independent playtime with her for awhile when we first dropped the morning nap as I wanted to give her time to adjust but we’re back at it now and she will do 40 min of solid time with no issues so I’m sure I’ll do that with her on days Kye has school too!

I’m so thankful for Babywise and that my children are such wonderful sleepers! I know getting good sleep is so critical for their health, growth, and development!

Emily Parker
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