dropping nap time | Mommy Adventures

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Death of the Day nap

Oh. My. Gosh. The screaming. The SCREAMING! I don’t handle screaming very well. It kind of makes me feel a little crazy. Like I want to curl up in a little ball and rock back and forth. And cry. A lot. And I’m not a crier. Or sometimes it makes me want to go out to the garage and give the punching bag a walloping while screaming my lungs out. Not that I can. My wrist still isn’t strong enough for that sort of thing. Instead, I take a deep breath, roll my eyes a little bit, scream inside my head but not out loud, and swallow my frustration/annoyance/anger/crazy. Whatever, I’m sure I’m not the only mom who feels this way. In fact, I know I’m not.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that it was four a.m. As in a.m. The morning. Daniel (7 months old) woke for the millionth time that night. ( In hindsight, it was probably teething. Found his 3rd little toothy peg just today. When he bit my finger. Wild little baby). Hannah (2.5 years old) used to sleep through all of Daniel’s night wakings. They share a room by the way. But recently, she started waking. Every. Single. Time. Sigh.

I gave Daniel his 4am feed and took him back to their room to put him in bed. He was already asleep in my arms. The booby seems to have that affect. I carefully laid him in his cot (crib).

“MOMMY I WANT TO GET UP!!!” Hannah screamed. Sigh.

“WAAAAAAAAAA!!” Yeah, now Danny was up too.

“No Hannah, it’s the middle of the night, it’s time to sleep still.”

“I want to go out in the play room with you.”

“With me? I’m not going in the play room, I’m going back to bed. To sleep.”

“I WANT TO GET UP NOW WWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!”

And that’s when I wanted to curl up and/or punch things and scream. But instead, I crawled in her bed with her and laid down.

“It’s time to sleep sweetie, it’s not time to get up yet.” With me in there with her, she laid back down. And the screaming stopped. Not a moment too soon. Daniel was playing in his cot. And then fussing. And then he went to sleep. Good boy.

Hannah, on the other hand, did not want to sleep. She was talking to herself. She was wiggling all over the place. She was constantly shoving her little hand in my face to make sure I was still there. I tried to sleep. I pushed myself as far away from her as I possibly could. Which wasn’t far at all, since Hannah has a junior bed. Smaller than a single bed, bigger than a cot. And by bigger, I mean longer. Not wider. Luckily I’m small. I could feel her every movement. Whenever she turned her head, hair flung all over my face.

She laid there, moving about for ages. Finally, she went to sleep. And then of course, Daniel woke up. It was 6am. And Daniels noise woke Hannah up again. SIGH.

That is when I decided Hannah would no longer have a day nap. She hasn’t really wanted to for a while anyway.

Now she has quiet time instead of nap time. She can’t do it in her room because she has started banging on the door whilst asking (ahem, yelling ) to come out. She can’t do it in Aaron and my room because she’d destroy all of our board games, play with my make up, lose all of my jewellery, and generally get into mischief. So, due to lack of other options, she’s on the couch with a sippy cup of milk, and Mickey Mouse on TV, while I attempt to get some chores done.

Did I mention that nap time was my sanity hour? Yes people, my one hour during the day when I can pee all by myself, not have to take care of anyone else’s pee, not attempt to get someone to say please all the time, not have to put anyone in time out, and not have to answer a million “why? why?” questions. Sure, I have to fold clothes and stuff, but I could fold the heck out of those clothes, whilst watching whatever I wanted to on TV, and sip a piping hot cup of tea that I didn’t have to worry about small humans grabbing and getting subsequent burns from.

We’ve only been having quiet time for a couple of days now. But it’s been pretty much going like this:

1. Hannah drinks her milk quietly on the couch whilst watching her chosen cartoon.

2. Finishes milk.

3. Gets off couch. “Mommy, what are you doing? Can I help?”

4. Gets toy stroller and runs it all around the apartment. Purposely hits walls and doors with it.

5. Poops in her underpants. I attempt to get them off without losing any of the poop, or getting it all over her and/or me.

6. I fail. Poop is all over bathroom floor.

7. “Hannah, STAND right there. Don’t move. I just need to get a wipe for your bottom.”

8. She doesn’t listen. Sits on the lid of her potty. Gets poo everywhere.

9. “Hannah, I told you not to move!”

10. sits on the bathroom floor. Gets poo all over that too.

11. After getting cleaned up, she goes to her box full of instruments. Yes, FULL of them. Bongos, maracas, recorder, tamborine, some other weird ones that I have no idea what are even called. All are noisy. Starts making “music.”

12. Sigh. Yeah, quiet time. Awesome. Can’t you tell?

How do you do quiet time for your toddler(s)?

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