We were chugging along the past yr. But I have hit a bit of a bump in the road with our loose daily routine. We are not clock watchers and I am ok with that. I am not a strict enforcer of routine but we do maintain as little chaos as possible. My children do not respond well to strict anything - it has a very adverse effect on accomplishing the task if I get too strict. What I am looking to see how others managed to helped the transition from 3, to 2, to 1 nap with the 1 yr old and have it match up or overlap with the 2 yr old.
G has been taking 3 (cat) naps for a while and now wants 2 (1 short 30 min nap in the am and 1 2hr nap that sometimes may or maynot overlaps A's afternoon nap) . G is VERY strong-willed and when he wants a nap - He wants/needs a nap NOW. I have tried to push through but end up letting him nap because he is a screaming crier. But what ends up happening is I am stuck at home in nap mode from 11-5 with both kids napping that fills up 11-5.
So if you have been through this and can help suggest some tips, I would love help. Or maybe I just need reassurance that "this too shall pass" .... I just miss the adult connections that you get at playdates, running errands and just leaving your house. Since my husband is gone a lot and with most playdates happening from 10-1 or 3-6, Everything is happening while we are stuck at home in nap mode and when it is not nap time, it is so late we have to ger dinner done, then it's bath/bed time ..... Leaving little time for running errands and leaving the house. Which is counter-productive to a clean/tidy house.
I am really craving adult conversation and my house is never getting tidy due to having at least 1 child up most of the day and needing entertaining all the waking hrs of the day. At night, I am so exhausted, with little motivation to clean or too overwhelmed to clean.
thanks in advance and thank you for just having such a great group of moms that I feel comfortable sharing/getting help w/ some parenting stressers.
edited to add more info:
Don't be fooled, We do have a "schedule", We aren't out wandering around with the kids ruling the function of my day. I had a daily rhythm going, and it was going quite well until recently, Thus, my dismay of now entering a phase were our rhythm we had is not working. G is extremely fussy, needy and somewhat overwhelming dependent which is ironic because he is doing this in order to try and declare his Independence , more so than A ever was at this age. A is just now hitting a patch where he too is trying to declare his Independence and I am trying to parent the best I can and still allow them to grow their personalities under order and keep our daily life as functional as possible with as less friction as possible.
I also suspect G is finally teething
I am just interested as many responses as possible. The good thing about raising children is everyone w/ or w/o has an opinion - So I figured everyone would love an opportunity to chime in and I would get many different responses and find/try tips that will help us. Because, it does take a village and there are many different ways to get the same goal which is happy momma, happy kids.
I know I am not inventing the wheel here and I think I am just looking for tips that others did/wish they did or learned along the way to ensure the best way to work through and cope through transitional phases and maintain a bit of sanity and less damage to the kids along the way. I supremely hate having unhappiness and chaos for most of our day because Momma/children have a learning curve to adjust to. It seems that for the first year. the transitions seem to be faster and quicker because I swear the whole first yr IS all transitional. But now, we (garrison) are changing less and seem to be trying to find more of a steady rhythm and struggling and I am low on creativity of things to try
5 comments:
It is so good to see a post from you! I can't say that I have any answers for you. My littlest is still small enough to nap in the bucket, if necessary. Anyway to use the lay-down feature of a stroller for the quick nap in the morning so you can go to a 10-1 playdate?
It's about time you blogged again!
Well, I only have the one, but my suggestion would be to try and figure out what you want your new rhythm to be (since you seem to be in a transition phase), and spend a week or two really focusing on it. Then you can play around with it a little more.
Also, how would it work for you to host the playdates for a while? That way you can let the kids nap when they need to and still get some interaction. One of my new friends here has kids about the same age as your two (you guys would like each other, by the way) and she's working on her younger kid's naps right now, so we are going to her house every time until she gets him really established.
My only suggestion for the cleaning too would be to get some help with the kids (or the house) on a weekend so that you can get it all clean and organized and then just try to maintain it as much as possible, since maintenance is easier than cleaning. And come visit me, I'll get A his own kid sized broom. ;)
Hello!! Schedules seem to change all of the time for us, but teething can totally mess everything up. I never really got the kids to nap at the same time and Luke gave up his naps pretty early. It's hard and when they are so close together it's REALLY hard. It does get better as they get older, though. I promise.
I am far more clueless than you, so I just offer support and love. Can you hire a teenager to help you with them someday so you have someone to talk to and clean up with?
we're kind of in the same boat - my 6 month old is transitioning from 4 to 3 naps plus we're doing sleep training at night. My 2.5 year old has a pretty stable nap in the afternoon (if we're late putting her down there's hell to pay) so I've used that as our anchor and kind of winging it with the baby. But I feel like he needs more structure now so am not sure where we'll end up.
I guess my only "insight" is, you know your kids the best - their temperaments, what you can get away with and what you can't. I like Moxie's suggestion: pick ONE thing you want to tackle, come up with a strategy, try it for a week, and if it doesn't work, try something else.
Good luck!!!
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