My school year dreams crashed and burned this week as our family officially entered the 'no napping zone.' To be fair, Briggs would still take a nap every day if I wanted him to. Unfortunately his night time sleep habits have gotten poor enough that we had to make a difficult choice: give up the 1-2 hours of quiet time in the afternoon or continue to deal with a child who won't fall asleep (or stay in bed) at night until 9:30 or 10:00 every single night. So the end of the nap it was.
The loss of nap time hasn't been as difficult for me (or Briggs) as I had thought it might be. I have instituted "quiet alone time" each afternoon for 30-45 minutes for each kid (and their mother) to rest and refresh. I am already enjoying the freedom that not having to schedule around a nap has allowed. Briggs has always rolled pretty well without a nap so we have not paid too big of an evening behavioral price. And it's incredibly refreshing to put 3 kids to bed at bedtime and have them all fall asleep immediately.
I may be mourning the loss of my school year nap time visions just a bit, but I also know that my house will be all too quiet in just a few years during the school year. So instead of being sad to say good-bye to naps in our house, I'll enjoy our scheduling freedom this summer and instead relish in the quiet night time hours.
Briggs has already decided that he'll still sneak in a quick nap when it's needed.
