Dreaded Transitions

Ever since Jadyn so selflessly gave her pacifiers to newborn babies in need, her nap has been very hit or miss. I refuse to make a fight out of it so I converted her normal naptime to quiet time in which she is allowed to watch a few episodes of Dora or Max and Ruby (her current fav). Some days she falls asleep and some days she doesn't. If only it was that simple.

Because to be perfectly honest, second only to potty training, getting rid of the nap is a dreaded transition for me and its not for the obvious reason of me losing my afternoon alone time. During "quiet hour" Jake plays his video game and Jadyn watches her shows and I still get some down time. The problem is that if Jadyn's bedtime and wake-up time are not both PERFECT, the next day is torture and while I can kind of control her bedtime (although daylight savings and the fact that Jake and Jadyn sleep together in the same bed), I cannot control what time she wakes up in the morning. Then either she falls asleep for her nap in the afternoon too late or sleeps too long, therefore derailing a decent bedtime that night OR she doesn't nap at all and we see the return of "witching hour" between dinner and night-night. If she obviously needed sleep and didn't nap, we are forced to perform circus tricks to keep her awake until its late enough for bed and forget about waking her from her nap once she falls asleep because she will cry for an hour straight out of sheer grumpiness. Basically our entire routine becomes a delicate balancing act reminiscent of an infant sleep schedule.

We went through the same thing with Jake around the same time. I really hoped that we would magically avoid it with Jadyn. After all potty training her was a cinch but unfortunately, we are in the exact same situation with her. Lately, she has been not napping more so than not and that is perfectly fine with me because I see the light at the end of the tunnel but what do you when you walk out of the room for a few minutes in the late afternoon and find this in the middle of the floor:

She was litterally in the middle of a little mini-meltdown because I wouldn't let her have a snack right before dinner and then poof, just like that she was sleeping. I knew there was a downside to her being able to fall asleep anywhere (including if you recall napping during NASCAR qualifying and falling asleep on a moving jet boat).

Like I said, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. For Jake, the real turning point occurred when he was 3 1/2 and the end of daylight savings came. It was much easier to get him to go to bed early when it was dark out and he got enough extra sleep that he no longer needed a nap and didn't suffer from late afternoon/early evening fatigue. Now Jake rarely naps, even on lazy days where Joe and I doze off in the afternoon, he is the one still going strong. But then I have to remind myself how different Jake and Jadyn's little personalities are from each other and I wonder how the transition will eventually work itself out. I certainly didn't expect to have a child sleeping on the floor next to the dogs right before dinner, that is for sure.