Welcome to Mommy Mondays, the one day out of the week when I let myself talk about my kid.
What parent hasn't tried the old, "Maybe if I put the kid to sleep later, he'll sleep later!" trick? When she was younger, we spent months trying to get to Pigtail to sleep from 8pm to 8am, because that worked best for our schedule. But that sweet baby nightly reminded us that 7pm was her sweet spot for bedtime and each morning she awoke around 7am, no matter how late we'd keep her up.
So we adjusted, and thanked our lucky stars that we had such a good sleeper. She was a little late to sleep through the night fully (five or six months) but she required almost no sleep training, which we were prepared to do. Pigtail fell into her own routine and until very recently she stuck to a strict bedtime and two daily naps.
Now, at seventeen months, we're making the somewhat painful transition from the two daytime naps into one. The issue is that she likes this nap to be fairly early in the day, and while she'll sleep a couple of hours, it makes the afternoon and evening a long stretch for such a little girl. Sometimes I put her down for a cat nap, and if that takes then we're all happier. But mostly we're having quite a moody few hours before bedtime.
I know it's just a stage to weather. I know that just as soon as we have a new routine, her needs or schedule will change again. But how do you convince a toddler that the more she naps, the better we'll all feel?
Don't ask my mom. She thinks she's just spent a week in the sleepiest household in America.
What are your current sleeping woes? Or how do you cope with the sleep schedule transition?
