Dropping Naps

There are a few things I have learned since becoming a mother. One is that all children are different. The other is that the 'textbook' child that all the experts speak of is far and few between.

D dropped to one nap a day at 6 months old. All of a sudden, he just didn't need it anymore. He was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and curious about the world. I spoke with the pediatrician and she told me that each child has different sleep needs and that it was fine as long as he wasn't suffering from it or grouchy. She said that with a child like him I should expect him to drop his one nap a day earlier than other kids, probably before age 2. Yikes!

I fear that the end is near, my friends. He used to sleep from 8pm to 6 or 6:30am and take a nap from 1-2:30-ish. For the past few weeks he hasn't been sleeping well at night for no apparent reason. He wakes up between 3-5am unable to go back to sleep. Even if he wakes up between 4-6am, he won't go down for a nap until late afternoon. The one day I only let him sleep for 30 minutes (we had to go out that day), he woke up just fine, went to bed at 7:30pm and slept in until 7am!

I have been wanting to carve time out for myself into the day and thought that it would be a great idea to set my alarm for 5am so I would have an hour before D wakes up to relax on my own in silence. I could have a cup of tea, read and take a shower and be at peace when he rises. This morning he woke up at 5am. Oy.

Today I will let him take a (short!) nap and then wake him up. He can go to bed as early as he needs to recuperate (I'm assuming he'll still stay up until at least 7pm). Fingers crossed that he sleeps in some tomorrow. If all goes well and he does sleep all night, tomorrow I will be replacing his nap with quiet time.

I'll keep you all posted. :)