Friday, July 18, 2008

Naptime troubles


I love Parker. Let me just say that before I go into how frustrated he has made me lately.

This is our afternoon nap routine. I lay Parker down, read him a story and then say, "Stay in bed and go to sleep." Parker responds cheerfully, "OK mommy!"

1-2 minutes later he walks out of his room with a big smile on his face. I chase him back in his room and sternly tell him he has to take a nap, only for him to come out a minute or so later. We will practice this routine for about an hour or longer until I finally give in and let him stay up.

Normally I would just say that he has grown out of naps, even though his four year old brother still asks almost daily for a nap and goes down without any trouble. The problem is he hasn't grown out of them his body just seems to work on a schedule where he doesn't get tired until about 4:30 or 5:00 pm. Then he will either be EXTREMELY cranky until bed time or fall asleep on the floor somewhere, and then when bed time rolls around we start the whole thing over again, because he just woke up 2 hours earlier and is not yet sleepy .

I am at a loss at what to do, this has been a problem for a long time. One I would like to remedy before the new baby comes, and before I go insane. Any suggestions anyone? Please help!

7 comments:

Carl and Amber said...

A little inconvenient...but you could do what Megan did and put him back in the crib with a net over it to force him to stay in!

ShalottLady said...

When DB got to that point I ended up reading him books then lying down with him until he fell asleep. That's the only way he'd go down...and it was worth it. But I imagine that would be harder with two.

Hatch Family said...

for us, nap time turned into quiet time. the kids have to stay in their rooms for 1 to 2 hours and not come out. it took some getting use too, but the got it and know they have to do it every day. i sometimes even find them asleep when i go get them. AND somedays they tell me they want to sleep instead of quiet time. good luck....

The Bloxham Family said...

Hey that sounds just like Dylan,
I can not ever get her to lay down when I need her to, But around 5:00 she wants to watch tv because she knows she is tired. I can't let her because then she is up til 12:00. So I have found that the doornob things trap her in her room so if anything she is having quiet time! Other than that I have no idea

Andrew and Melissa said...

Thanks for all the advice. We are working on getting him to try and stay in his room, even if he doesn't sleep. We'll see how it works out.

Andrew and Melissa said...

Thanks for all the advice. We are working on getting him to try and stay in his room, even if he doesn't sleep. We'll see how it works out.

Bedkes said...

I do the quiet time thing too with Blake and most the time he ends up falling asleep. Good luck this stuff isn't fun!