Sleep schedule

[alison]

So, I'm wondering if I'm the one who should be more flexible of the two of us. Basically, dd's sleep schedule renders it almost impossible to partake in normal daily stuff. She's a crazy good sleeper, but it leaves us with a window of about 12:30pm-3pm to do everything! She wakes up around 8:30am, goes down for her first two-hour nap at 10:30am, is up at 12:30, goes down again at around 3:30, and sleeps until 5-5:30. She goes to bed for good around 8:30-9, and sleeps through until the following morning. It's a lot of sleeping! If I so much as wake her up from a nap, then she is so cranky, and screams the entire time we are running errands or are out to eat.

But really, this leaves so little time during the day to do things.

Should I just let her be and continue to try to squeeze everything into those 3 hours during the day that she's awake???

[peggyfromwastate]

I'd take it at this point... She'll be changing over to 1 nap pretty soon and then you'll be wishing you still had 2 naps. I know sometimes you feel like a hostage in your own home, but changing the sleep patterns, while it's doable, is painful. I would just hang in there a little bit longer. How old is she now? By the time she's about 18 months she'll be for sure down to 1 nap.

J dropped her morning nap at 9 months. I was not ready for that to go, but she was...

[Pollyanna]

Never wake a sleeping baby if you don't absolutely have to. Like Peggy said, she'll be down to one nap soon enough and you will miss the sleepy time.

[alison]

But she's 12 months old, and sometimes I just want to go!!!

This is the better option than her being up all day and not napping at all (or rarely).

We have to go to a dinner party at 6, and she's still asleep.... We're gonna have to wake her up in 10 minutes in order to make it on time.

[Deebs]

DD is 10 months old, and on a very similar schedule. She is the third child, so things are probably a little different. There are days that she just doesn't get her nap. I try to make it so that it doesn't happen two days in a row, though (I don't want to ruin the best sleeper I've ever had!). I would follow her schedule except for 1 or 2 days a week where I would have her skip one of her naps. If she's super tired, she might sleep in her stroller or car seat. Believe it or not, there will come a day where you are wishing for such great sleeping!

[alison]

You're right... We ended up waking her at 5:30. She cried until we got her into the car, and then she yawned and rubbed her eyes the whole way to dinner. Clearly, she wasn't done sleeping yet. And she was tired again by 7:30... She went to bed around 9:30 after being on a cake buzz, and there hasn't been a peep out of her room since then.

I'll take it! My champion sleeper!
We've got a tumbling class that starts in a couple of weeks, and it's during her naptime, so I'll take your advice and keep her up for it. It's just once/week, and she can sleep in her stroller on our walk back home from class.

[Deebs]

My other advice (totally unsolicited, take it for what it's worth)...if you are taking classes with her, make sure it's for YOU. At this age, the best reason to take classes is for you to get out with other people. She doesn't really need peer socialization right now. That being said, when I had only one child, I always had her in something so that I could meet other mommies.

[peggyfromwastate]

lol- I signed up the baby for a gymnastics class (ok so she's 2 but still my baby). There are no other mothers in there. Our very own private gym lesson! And I love it. I don't have to stress about keeping her in line or any of that, the instructor is very laid back and he just lets her run free. You want to jump on the trampoline! Great! It's wonderful. I'm dreading when other moms join the class!!

[diggitydot]

Our DD1 used to take 2 2-hour long naps every day until she was 5. She's now almost 15. I miss those nap days.

[GreyhoundsRUs]

Our DD1 used to take 2 2-hour long naps every day until she was 5. She's now almost 15. I miss those nap days.

Best quote from one of my high school students "You know how they have naptime in preschool and the kids all cry and don't want it, but they still have to lay down? Well, we WANT naptime and they won't give it to us!"

[MrsK]

This is the better option than her being up all day and not napping at all (or rarely).

This is what I've got. He sleeps 10 hours at night and takes about 1.5 naps daily when he is at day care (20 minute morning nap and a 2 hour mid-day nap). He's never conformed with the two-long-naps-daily infant nap schedule. On the weekends, he will not nap unless he happens to nod off in my arms. He's not exceedingly cranky on the weekends but he has his moments which are generally followed by a 10 minute catnap and then he's all better. I wonder what I'd do if he had a strict nap schedule and absolutely had to sleep in his crib at naptime.

[Vishenka69]

I would kill for a nap schedule like yours. But then I suspect that you would do the same for an appetite I got. Every day I wonder if there are children who are both good sleepers and good eaters.

[scrub-jay]

I would kill for a nap schedule like yours. But then I suspect that you would do the same for an appetite I got. Every day I wonder if there are children who are both good sleepers and good eaters.

Mine is a good sleeper - at night. She does not favor naptime, when she does it is unpredictable. But the ped warns that everything will change when we introduce solids...he also said that we can't bf her forever. :P

[alison]

She didn't wake up until 9am this morning...
My inlaws already think I'm a lazy bum as it is, so I'm just dying to hear what they'll say about how easy I have it when they see that she sleeps almost the entire day and through the night.

The good news is that her schedule makes it possible for us to go to her class at 10am, without having to wake her up. The bad news is that she goes down by 11am, so I'll have to race home with a cranky child and won't get to socialize much with the other parents. Even if I do force it with keeping her out longer, it's not worth having a crying fussy baby (who bangs her head against the floor when she's tired). Thump thump.