GoodNight SleepBlog

Day 1 of Transition to One Nap

August 15, 2012 at 2:02 PM 4 comments

I’ve been in denial for a month or so now.  I knew the time had come, the day was here, it was game time.  It was time to drop the twins morning nap…gasp!…sigh…

I had held on to it for probably a month more than I should have for a few reasons.  Even though they hadn’t been sleeping so great for their afternoon naps lately, my little all-star independent sleepers were fine with chilling in their crib for an hour or so and having some quiet time, or entertaining one another (the perks of having them in the same room.)  They were still going down fine at night and sleeping through until morning, so I held on as long as I could.  I used the ‘me’ time to write sleep plans for you :), and was able to stretch out the transition to when they were closer to 18 months and older, and therefore making that jump from wakeup in the morning to the afternoon nap that much easier.

I also wanted to wait until my husband was home while we were on vacation.  I thought oh no, I’m not doing this alone buddy!  If I’m going down you’re going down with me.  So we planned that Tuesday would be our day.  A few days before I was starting to put them down a bit later and later, pushing out that 9am start time to 9:30 or 10am.  I knew that my son would have no problem with the jump, he has always been better at stretching out those awake times.  It was my daughter I was worried about.  She is my routine girl and she loves and needs her sleep.  She was not going to be easy, but she’d pull through.

Tuesday came around and we woke up saying okay this is it, we’re doing it today.  We woke everyone up at 7am and had breakfast and it was go time.  The next step was the smartest I could make, I left!  Haha!  I grabbed the four-year old and high-tailed it out of there 🙂  Only after I made sure hubby was okay with it, of course.  Hey it was Oakville Momstowns birthday party and we wanted to go!  I left strict instructions; watch their signs, especially Lila’s, and if by 11am she is in meltdown mode then get them down to bed.  My husband was capable and supportive, I wasn’t worried.

We had a blast at the party and when we came home around noon they were still up.  Uh oh.  But they were still up and smiling – yay!  Hubby said around 11am Lila really started getting fussy and crying, Duncan of course was my one-nap trooper.  So he made the decision of rather than putting them to bed he would make them lunch.  He knows my daughter so well, sleep is her first love, and food is a very close second.  Once they had lunch she was fine.  Nice!  So I cleaned them up and got them  in their cribs at 12:00 pm and they were out like a light.  Normally they would play a bit and talk a bit, and sleep and wake up and fall back asleep and wake up, but they both slept through until 3pm!  Yay!  Nothing like some fabulous consolidated & restorative sleep for my wee ones 🙂

The important thing was to make sure that because I was taking away some sleep throughout the day, I was adding some in as well at different times of the day.  So they had a nice 3 hour nap and I made sure I bumped up their bedtime to 6pm from 6:30 pm.  They went down fine and slept through until this morning.  We are now on Day 2 and we had a minor meltdown this morning, nothing that some cheerios and walk around the block couldn’t fix but more on that tomorrow!

So this is a new stage in the McGinn household.  It means a new transition for the babies and for mom too.  My schedule needs some reorganizing now as well, but nothing that I can’t do.  Sophie will be off to school in September all day and the Grandma’s have already offered their morning duty services so I can still provide you the best service possible.  This week we will mourn the morning nap but by next week it will all be a fond and distant memory.  Join me on my nap transition journey, won’t you?

R.I.P. The Morning Nap.  You developed, they adapted, they took what they needed from you and now we must let you go.  Thank you for your healthy Zzzz’s…you will be missed but never forgotten.

Entry filed under: Talkin Zzzz's.... Tags: Naps...Ugh..., Sleep Training, Twins!.