This was the real test of the re-Ferberized weekend. Would The Boy take a nap without it being a battle royale?
Things The Working Dad and I were supposed to do:
1. Stick close to home. No big trips that would keep us from being home by lunchtime.
2. Feed The Boy lunch by no later than 11:30.
3. Be in The Boy's room by noon so he can wind down for nap at 12:30.
The 12:30 nap is not our idea, but is his schedule at school. We have tried in the past not to deviate too much from the school schedule so he can have an easy transition back to school on Monday morning.
So.
What actually happened on Saturday was a little different.
We had to take my car for an oil change, so we dropped it off around 9, then went to breakfast (or as we say to The Boy, to get bacon and jelly) near the dealership, then we went to the nearby mall to let The Boy run off some energy.
At 10:30, the car still wasn't ready, so we headed home. The Boy fell asleep in the car right around 11 o'clock. We let him. We carried him up to his room asleep and he napped until about 1:45. He was cheerful and ready for lunch when he woke up. Happy day!
Sure, we didn't really obey the Ferber rules, but we got a serious nap out of him with no fuss. And the rest of the day was pretty darned pleasant. Except for a little fussing at the park (he didn't want to leave the "duuuuuckkkkiiiieeeesssss!"), it was a pleasant day with a well rested boy.
One thing The Working Dad and I observed is that his nap came about 5 hours after he woke up for the day. With him waking up just before 2 from his nap and an 8 o'clock bedtime, his nap fell pretty much right in the midpoint of his day.
We have noticed that The Boy starts to look and act tired by late morning. In the past, we've tried to keep him up (even if he started to nod off) so that we could make it to the 12:30 nap time on the weekends. I think this may have been a mistake. I think that in striving to keep him on the school nap schedule we were making an over-tired boy who then had trouble getting to sleep at the appointed hour.
I haven't figured out how the school manages to keep him up that long and not have a cranky, over-tired boy at 12:30. Maybe the peer pressure of other awake kids keeps The Boy going. At any rate, I think we are resolved to be a little more relaxed about naps and let him get his nap on the weekend when he gets drowsy. If that's 11 a.m., that's okay. We're just going to watch his cues and not be so hidebound by the school schedule.
On Sunday, I heard the words "Mommy eat!" come through the baby monitor at 5:33 a.m., but then he was quiet until 6:15 a.m., when I heard those words again plus the word "up." So, you know, we were up. I would have liked to get another couple of hours of sleep, but that okay. The Working Dad and I have learned that staying up late is a thing of the past as long as we've got an early riser of a boy and so, well, we don't do that anymore. So breakfast for everybody!
We went to the grocery store (where The Boy likes to drive the race car grocery cart), then we came home and unloaded groceries. The Working Dad and The Boy played while I did prep for the week's dinners, started bean soup for tonight's dinner, and got lunch going. (Yes, Wonder-Woman-level of multi-tasking.)
The Boy had dark circles developing under his eyes, so he had lunch early (brunch, really) and by 11:15, we were up in his room. We played some and then he sat in an armchair and read books to us. At noon, we put him to bed, he yelled a little (for less than five minutes), but went to sleep pretty fast. He really does need an earlier nap, but that's just not going to happen during the week at school, but we can work to provide that on the weekends.
He slept until 2:45, got up cheerful, had a snack, and then we met our friends at the park. Dinner time, potty time, bath time and bedtime were all nice and peaceful. It's good to be back on track with sleep. And it's even better that it wasn't that difficult to get back on track.
