Losing My Mind

Hi Girls,
My twinkies just turned three in October and I'm at a loss about their sleep habits. We used to have a pretty nice routine of 1.5 hour naps and 8:00 bedtimes. Everything has changed since we went on vacation in December, spent lots of time out and about over the holidays, and then were sick. My daughter has fought her naps for a few months and it seems she is down to having a nap a couple times a week. My son still seems to need a nap but has missed quite a few lately. When they started missing naps they used to go to bed at 7:00 and fall asleep almost instantly. Now, they are fighting bedtime and it takes until 9:00 for them to fall asleep. Tonight they spent two hours coming out of their rooms, throwing all their bedding on the floor, and doing flips on their beds. I nearly lost my mind. Any suggestions? Anyone else deal with this?
Lydia

 

Gosh, I am sorry you are having these issues - I have been there myself!

I would suggest a few things, if they aren't napping I would suggest a VERY early bedtime, say around 6 or 630pm (that way even if they do fool around for 30 to 45 min, they still get to bed at a reasonable time in order to get the amount of sleep they need).

at around 3.5yrs old my kids started fighting naps, it ended up on days when they did nap. they would wake up that much earlier in the morning - which took our normally wake up time at 630am, to 430am a lot of morning! So, mine didn't fight going to bed, but did fight their waking time.

I ended up putting up baby gates in their doorways to keep them in their rooms, using a sticker chart reward system, putting them to bed VERY early (6pm for the first few months after they stopped napping). And, then expecting I might go through 30min of trying to get them to bed (hence why bedtime was so early).

 

I agree with Isis, if they are skipping naps, I would definitely aim for an earlier bed time. Are they staying up until 9 whether they nap or not? Or is that just days they nap? If it's days they nap, I am wondering if they need a shorter nap.
My two just turned 4 and most days my son naps and about half the time my daughter naps. They used to be good for close to 3 hour naps and now it's about 1.5 hours to 2...depending on the day. On days that they don't want to nap, I still send them to their rooms for quiet time where they can look through books and play quietly for some time. I tell them that their brains need to rest so they can grow strong and smart.

 

I'd get rid of naps altogether at this point. At first my kids just fell asleep on the couch for 30 minutes and it was fine. Then stick to the 7pm bedtime and see how it goes.

 

How do you get them to play quietly or look at books when they're in the same room? I've tried implementing quiet time since mine will not nap at home and it usually turns into jump off the furniture and generally get crazy time. I've just given up on the idea because it seems to cause more stress than it's worth, but I'd love it if we all could have a little rest time - even for a half an hour. (I've considered letting them watch TV for an hour or so in the middle of the day, but I try to limit them to an hour max a day of TV and if they watch TV during "rest time" then I don't want to let them watch TV while I'm cooking dinner...)

 

I have been separating my two at nap time, since they got out of their cribs last August. It just needed to happen. They just cannot sleep together at nap times. If they are in the same room, they won't nap and separating them was for my sanity.

Now, if they are already in two different rooms and napping isn't working, then stop the naps and put them to bed as one pp said, 6:30 or 6:45pm.

You said that one of the kids still needs a rest time. What about putting that child down for a rest time and have the other one quietly playing with you some place else in the house for about an hour?