“Quiet” Time
Most of my 3yo Drake’s friends stopped napping every day a while ago. Drake, though, continued to nap nearly every day. One day I even wondered whether he was doing it out of habit, but then we skipped a day and he melted down that night. Still needs it, I noted. And within the last two months, I finally managed to get both Drake and his baby brother Guppy to take afternoon naps about the same time.
Then a few weeks ago it was getting close to nap time and Drake said, “I’m really tired. I want to go up for my nap.”
I picked my jaw off the floor, rushed him up for his nap, and he fell asleep almost immediately.
And that was the last real nap he took.
Since then, I put him in his room, and instead of napping he gets out books and “reads” them. While I could put a lock on his book closet door, that feels terribly wrong. How can I, in good conscience, stop him from doing what I usually do every day?
When I’ve told my friends that he’s stopped napping, they ask if he does “quiet time.” I grimace. Drake’s version of quiet time is reciting books from memory, singing loudly, kicking the wall by his bed, saying “mom, mom, mom” into the monitor until I go up and ask what he wants, or, last week, shouting the ABCs while stomping along on the floor till the walls shook, while I crossed my fingers that baby Guppy wouldn’t wake from his nap. Currently, he’s doing something (banging on the wall with a book?) that is loud enough to register on Guppy’s monitor, the next room over.
I don’t think this is just a phase. I think he’s given up naps. He goes to sleep faster at night and sleeps longer in the morning to compensate. Now I just need to find a way to get him to be quiet while Guppy naps.