A few weeks ago my daughter climbed out of her crib and fell down onto the ground. She then proceeded to came out of her room and look for us in an attempt to heal her boo-boo. As responsible parents we then decided that this was the time to change her crib from 4 walls to 3. Ever since that fateful day, my daughter has yet to go down for a nap and stay down. She’s constantly getting up now and it’s become a battle of luck and endurance. It is through this battle that I’ve begun to contemplate the death of nap time.
Prior to the fall incident, my daughter would take a two hour nap during the day and then fall asleep rather quickly at night. She’d sleep through the night and wake up some 8 hours later. It was amazing. Now… now we’re lucky if she takes a nap at all and doesn’t come into our room before 6am.
The main problem now is the fact that my daughter is no longer forced to stay in her bed. When she was unable to remove herself from the sleeping quarters, she’d entertain herself by bouncing around her crib. Sometimes these bounce sessions would last up to a half hour but would always end with her eyes closed and sleeping like a champ. If she needed us she’d call out and we were quick to respond. But that’s all changed.
She is no longer trapped by 4 walls and can freely leave her bed if she desires. The new routine has gone from bouncing around to getting up and attempting to sneak past me to the TV. I always catch her and I rush her back to bed. I normally start off pretty gentle about it, reminder her that it’s bed time and she needs her sleep. As time goes on though, I get a bit harsher. After 2 hours I don’t even bother getting up when I hear her, I just barked out, “Munchkin, what are you doing? Back to bed!” and I hear her little feet scamper back to the blankets.
Not only am I having trouble getting my daughter to sleep and but I can feel my sanity start to slip away.
During her nap times I’d do things for myself like take a shower, eat food, relax or do work. Now I’m lucky if I can just go to the bathroom without her getting up. You can never really relax when you have to pay attention to every sound you hear in hopes that it’s not a little one attempting a prison break.
I’ll be honest and admit that I knew this day was coming, I just kind of hoped it would’ve been a smoother transition. Instead of enjoying a few hours to myself I’m struggling just to hold it together until Momma gets home and gives me some relief. And that makes me feel even worse.
“Hello Momma, how was your day? In all honesty, I don’t really care because I need to dump the Munchkin on you so I can get some must needed R&R.” Yep, father of the year material right here baby.
So I’m at a loss of ideas here. I can’t keep up this pace of 2 hours attempts to sleep while I desperately wait for Momma to come and relieve me of my duties. I don’t think I can mentally take that everyday and Momma probably isn’t to happy about that either.
Thanks for listening to my rant. I don’t think I’ve come up with any good ideas but maybe you have something you’d like to share.
Has your child stopped taking naps? What age did it happen? How did you deal with the transition? Any thoughts on how I can work with my daughter to make life better for everyone?
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Oh, Dustin, you’ve got the double whammy: the end of naptime, and the end of the crib! With our first-born, these two came somewhat separately, although both around the age of 2. We’re still creeping toward the age where we’ll have to deal with them with our current 2 year-old.
With naptime, it was just sort of an inevitability we had to adjust to, like the advent of our kids themselves. For a little while, at least, it was a tad easier to get our son to bed in the evening, so maybe we could buy an extra half hour at night, but not for long. We realized we couldn’t force him to nap; we just had to suck it up and stomach the loss.
I remember being dreadfully afraid of switching him from the crib to the toddler bed, for exactly the reasons you’ve described. As it panned out, although there were times when he “escaped,” all in all, he stayed put much better than I’d expected. Which makes me all the more afraid of when it’s his little brother’s turn.
We did use some techniques, though, that helped:
- We established with him that 6:30 is “wake-up time.” Unless he has to use the potty, he’s not allowed out of his room before 6:30.
- I bought a cheap clock at Target, pulled off the face, and–getting him involved in the process–decorated it, including coloring in the marks where the hands will go when it’s 6:30, so that he could easily see when “wake-up time” had arrived.
- We made a rule that, although he couldn’t leave his room before wake-up time, if he truly couldn’t get back to sleep, he could play quietly by himself in his room until then.
A couple more tidbits that became very helpful at this age for us:
Lunch-time? Get her involved in simple safe parts like taking napkins to the table, setting out silverware, putting chips on plates, etc.
- Make sure your outside doors (and doors to any other dangerous places) are “childproof.” For us, that meant a chain on the front door, squeezing a baby gate in to hold the patio doors shut, and putting a “bolt” style lock on the basement door. Baby gates alone don’t suffice for avid climbers.
- Try to merge child monitoring with some of those necessities by creative involvement. Shower time? Bring her in the bathroom and let her play on the floor. Or if she won’t stop pulling back the curtain, get a hose-type shower head and take “Japanese showers” for a while, where you wet down, turn off the water, lather up, then strategically rinse. Shower curtains become optional.
Good luck, Dustin! You’re not alone!
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Dustin Reply:
December 9th, 2011 at 9:07 pm
Thanks for your ideas, that clock one is a really good one. It would help teach her time and also allow us to sleep till a specific time.
When you tought your son the “wake-up time” rules, how old was he and how long did it take for him to get the idea of time?
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You are not alone in this and it’s something that every parents faces. Now comes the chore of retraining her to a new pattern. When my boys moved to their toddler beds, both not long after their 1st birthdays, the task of keeping them in bed started. Just a bit of advice, do not…and I repeat DO NOT, get in the habit of laying with them. This is one of those things that took us over a year to break, and if I had to do it again I would not have done that at all. Now comes the daunting task of consistency. Find a schedule time for naps, make that the designated nap time and stick with that time period. The days of 2 hour naps is probably far gone, now aim for at least an hour and you may get lucky and experience some good 1.5 hour days. The same goes for night time, set a time for bed time and become consistent with it.
I remember having to swat my boys several times at first because they would be out of their beds continually. First started with the warnings, then the stern warnings, then the yelling at them down the hall…finally a swat was in order because of their continued disobedience. Yeah, some parents frown at me and wave their crooked fingers of “BAD PARENT” in my direction for swatting, but it works.
Mornings are tough, cause when the wake up they wake up. My 4 yo still cannot sleep past 6:30, no matter what day it is and my 5 yo would sleep til 10am if you let him. They are just wired differently. What I have found is that as long as you stay consistent with what’s expected in time it will all click.
We cut out Nap Time completely when they are 4, in order to prepare them for starting School when they are 5. Now if they’ve had a looooong rough day and are just absolutely exhausted we’ll let them snooze for about 30 minutes, but no more so we know they will be ready for bed at their designated bed time.
When we had naps our schedule was typically:
Naps from 1:30 to 2:30pm
Bed Time at 8pm.
Honestly, no sugar coating, it took us 4 long months to get the bed time schedule down pat (probably not as long if we hadn’t been laying with them until they went to sleep prior), keeping them in bed after we said prayers and went about doing what ever we needed to do, and designated nap time took about 2 months. I wish you luck and just find what works best for you and her.
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Dustin Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 12:34 am
Thanks for the honest truth. Sometimes it’s hard to get through something when you don’t know how long it’s going to take. 4 months sounds like forever but at least it’s a goal to work towards.
Much appreciated.
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LOL! I have two kidlets. The youngest is 15 and my oldest turns 19 tomorrow. I remember this so clearly. I finally got fed up and said. “LOOK, after lunch it is NAPTIME. That means you have to take a nap. If you CAN’T sleep, you have STAY IN BED and play quietly until the end of NAP time. And if you hear me coming to check on you, you’d better be in that bed and LOOK like you’re sleeping!” (I was very stern.) Worked like a dream for son who played quietly on his bed and even dozed off most days, but daughter fought it all the time. Finally I told her, “Until you turn 4, you HAVE to have a nap.” I swear I never heard another protest from her…for TWO YEARS. On her 4th birthday, she said. “I’m so glad I’m 4. I don’t have to have naps anymore!” HAHAHA
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Just caught sight of your question, Dustin. Our guy was about two and a half, I think, when we moved him out of his crib, and we started the wake-up time thing about the same time. Maybe a smidge older. It took a few weeks before he really got it. After many repetitions of him coming to our bed, and us diligently taking him back to his room and pointing at the clock, he started to put the two together for himself.
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Just read Todd’s & Samantha’s comments. Great stuff! You should put this all in a “Comics & Parenting” book, Dustin!
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Dustin Reply:
December 27th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
That’s not a bad idea. I’ve often thought about a giant compilation of parent related comics and stories. Was never really sure if it would sell or not though.
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