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ladychicago
member
OK - naps with 2+ kids... especially if you SAH
ladychicago
member
(ETA: so realized it isn't just a 2u2 issue... would love to hear others' experiences regardless of the age difference!)
I'm hitting the "nap" dilemma stage. I knew this was coming, but I'm getting all anxious about it.
Up until now, H's naps had been 45 minutes and kind of all over the place. No set schedule, just 90 minutes after the last time he woke up. And he would take short naps in the stroller or in the carrier, so it was no big deal for him to nap "on the go."
But over the last week, he seems to have settled into a 9am nap - lasting 1.5-2 hours. Which is AWESOME! Except that it isn't. a 9-11am nap means we can't leave the house in the morning! Anna eats lunch at 11:30 and goes down at 12. She sleeps for 2.5-3 hours.
And while she could conceivably nap at 12:30 or 1pm instead (to give us a whopping HOUR to get out before lunch), if she sleeps for 2.5-3 hours, that would take her nap until 3:30 or 4pm, and then bedtime at 6:45pm is highly unlikely. And she needs the "early" bedtime, because she is up at 6am-ish no matter what time she goes to bed (I'd happily move her to 7/7:30pm if she would sleep in later, but she doesn't. so a later bedtime just means less sleep and more crankiness. Not something I'm going to encourage).
So.... those who have been there, what did you do? Do you just suck it up and not leave the house? Do you pick a few days of the week to stay home for a real nap, and take a short "on the go" nap for LO#2 the other days (he only sleeps for 20ish minutes in the stroller now, maybe 45ish in the carrier)? How does that end up working out for the younger kid? I want him to have good sleep habits, but there HAS to be balance, right?!
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Re: OK - naps with 2+ kids... especially if you SAH
DS1 is older and takes his nap a little later than your scenario. But this is what we are doing...
Everyone is up at 7AM. DS2 naps around 9:30 to 11:30. During this time, DS1 and I play outside or in the playroom. We eat lunch at 12:30 (bottle at noon) and both go down for naps again at 1:30. They both sleep until about 3:30. DS2 sometimes needs a cap nap around 5 and then is in his crib by 7. DS1 is in bed at 8.
Most days, we have been staying home in the morning. I drop DS1 off at a MDO one day and that day I take DS2 around to do errands and gets little naps in the carseat. Not ideal but I need that time to do errands without DS1. If I don't do my errands that day, I will go after the afternoon nap.
This is going to be my strategy until DS2 starts taking just one nap. For DS1 that was when he was about a year old. So I figure we will be staying around the house a lot this summer. In the fall, I will start getting out in the morning with both of them.
It stinks but I see it as only a temporary thing.
TTC #1: IUI #2 = BFP , Betas 550 (16 dpiui), 1523 (18 dpiui)
Hypothyroid, LPD, FSH 13.0, TTC 2 yrs B4 BFP
TTC #2: FSH 23, AMA, IUI 1, 2, 3 = BFN, IVF #1 = MC
IVF #2 = BFP - Betas 194 (14dp2dt), 366 (16 dp2dt), 841 (18 dp2dt)
(vanished twin ~7 weeks)
I am trying to be way less of a nap nazi for Parker than I was for Caroline. I still live and die by her naps, but I'm trying to be a little more laid back about his.
I need to get out of the house. So, on the days that she goes to school, I get out and about. Parker has to nap in the car on those days. They usually aren't long or quality naps, but they are naps nonetheless.
The problem comes on days when they are both home (which are rare, thanks to day school and grandparents who ask to keep Caro once a week) and we want to get out of the house. It just doesn't happen that much, but if it does, I will sacrifice his naps WAY before I sacrifice hers...since he takes three and she only takes one. Also, her attitude is way worse when she doesn't nap...and I can always pop him on the boob to make him happy ;-)
I absolutely long for the day when he drops to one nap. Then I can put both of them down and the same time in the afternoon, and we can have our mornings free.
It is a tough situation, no matter what. Good luck!
We pick a few days a week that we go out in the morning. When we go out in the am, K just has to nap on the go. Thankfully, if she takes a short nap in the am, her afternoon nap is usually a bit earlier (and around the same time as C's) and longer. I don't know if it's second kid syndrome or K is more easy going, but she is ok with us messing with her morning nap for the most part.
If we don't get out in the am, we try to get out around 330 when everyone wakes up.
We get out almost every single morning. I figured out that, if we're at home, DD will often take a "real" nap, but if we're on the go, she's okay with a catnap. I just commit to making sure they both get at least one "good" nap in every day.
So, DD falls asleep in the car - usually as we're headed *to* somewhere (around 9:00 or 10:00) - and usually gets 15 minutes in that way. I wake her when we arrive, and she's in decent spirits!
Now, if she falls asleep again on the way home (noon-ish), I try to let her stay asleep, either by very carefully transferring her to her crib, or driving around and/or eating lunch with DS (my oldest) in the car or having a picnic in the front yard next to the van with the door open - both of which he considers to be really special treats
Otherwise, we get home from our outing around noon, and DS my oldest goes down for his nap around 12:30. Uusally, then, I'll hang out with DD and give her another bottle, and she'll often nap around 1:30. They'll both wake up between 2:30 and 3:30, and we usually spend our afternoons doing art, playing in the kitchen, or playing outside and watching for daddy
All that said, I'm really flexible with DD's naps. She pretty much isn't on a schedule, although I can count on her sleeping for at least an hour between 1 and 3 - but, like I said, that works for her and for us
Hopefully when she drops to one nap I'll be able to be structured and have it at a similar time as DS's.
My DD only ever took up to a 1 hour nap in the am. If it was longer, we usually ended up waking her up. Depending on her wake up time, I would put her down about 8:30-9, and have her up by 10 so we could get out of the house. We did have one day where we had DS's Little Gym class at 10 about 20 min away, so I would keep her up and hope she would nap on the way there, and keep sleeping in her snap and go during the class...as she got older, she stopped doing that and would just miss her am nap.
She was a very easy going baby, though. So on the days that she only took a short nap or no nap at all, she went down for her pm nap at 12-12:30, and DS went down at 1. If she stayed up much longer than that, she became an overtired mess!
The am nap actually worked out well for me - she would nap, DS would watch a show, and I would shower and get dressed. Once she would wake up, I would feed her and off we went. Even just leaving the house for 1-1.5 hours was nice for a change of scenery.
Good luck!
When Ava was still taking 2 naps it went like this:
9:30-11 naptime
If we went anywhere (like the park), I would make sure to get everything ready and in the car before she woke up. she'd wake up around 11, I'd change her diaper and off we'd go. We'd have to be home by 12:30 for lunch and naps.
You know where I am and athe crazyness we have going on and my kids are just a hot mess w sleeping right now well actually A is sleeping better then all of us..But I remember reading a while back that LVBld went through this w the twins..
I remember her saying that the twins would nap on the go in the AM and then she always made sure that they were all home for afternoon naps..that's kind of how I am approaching this situation.. a has to nap on the go in the am so we can get out of the house.. But all Afternoon naps will be done at the house when ever I find one??
We are just getting past that someone-is-napping-all-the-time stage this week, DD is dropping a nap. It was rough because unless we had plans, I felt like I was stuck in the house once 10am came around and I couldnt leave again until 4 or later. If we did need to get out, DD (the younger) sacraficed her nap because she was able to sleep in her carseat and was able to be put down once we got home. If DS falls asleep in the car, even if it's just for 2 minutes, that's it - his nap is over.
It is rough but hang in there, just like everything else, it is just a short-time in the grand scheme of things.
-----Lisa-----