Reporting live from Sadnonapville

Yep, I think the naps are done for. Barring any illness (which I'm seriously not wishing for, but at the same time kind of am), I don't think there will be much more afternoon napping in our house for the toddler set. For the mom? Well, that's a different story, but I think it is generally frowned upon to leave your 3-year-old with free reign over the house and a comatose parent 'supervising'.

I've alluded (ad nauseum) to our nap battles and I just finally had to accept that it (mostly) wasn't worth the fight. I can't even remember the last time that Ellen took a nap at home, which is saying something.

I had been taking her up to her crib (she still sleeps there at night, which will need addressing later) and she acted sleepy and yes, was truly tired, but she would just get a 2nd wind about 7 seconds after I left the room and she would bounce and talk and sing for at least 45 minutes and then would be so wound up she wouldn't sleep for anything.

So, I had to choose: was the sleep more important or was it more important for me to have quiet time away from my child? I can't force sleep, but I can enforce quiet time, so that won.

I am working hard on trying to enforce "quiet time". She has to stay in her bed and read quietly until I tell her it is Ok to come out. I am aiming for an hour, but she reliably lasts about 40 minutes at this point before the whining really starts. Openly looking for suggestions on how to make this work better - please fill me in! Also, I really truly hope that she will one day realize it is OK to fall asleep during quiet time if needed, but she is so stubborn (I blame her father) that I am not holding my breath.

She is still kind of a crabby-puss in the late afternoons, but it isn't as awful as it used to be when she skipped nap and bedtime is much more reliable. She goes down between 730-800pm and sleep comes not long after. This is really how I knew that we were probably truly done with the nap - she can make it through the day (pretty well) and bedtime is much better. I would really like to get her to stretch her morning wake-up time from 630am (on a good day) to closer to 700am, because I still think she is deficient in sleep, but I'm hoping that will come with time.

Oh, and another complicating factor is that she still naps at school 4 days a week. They have to nap, and I know she wakes up earlier than most kids most days, and it does kind of muck up our bedtime routine on those nights. They still have nap NEXT YEAR at school, too, which I can't even imagine how that will work.

So. It is what it is. I'm trying to see the silver lining in the fact that we can get out of the house in the afternoons. Also, everyone kept telling me to keep her in her crib as long as possible (which I'm all for) except I'm willing to bet those people's kids were still napping when they transitioned to a big bed. This one will be .... interesting.