For boy #2 we're in a period of transitioning away from naps. Remember, this is the one I once named 'the baby tornado,' an apt moniker ever since. He's incredibly willful, explorative and observant. He gets into everything you can possibly imagine and more. When he decides he's going to do something he simply does it, like talking, without much time demonstrating a learning process. I guess I should clarify that the transition I mention has not been gradual. He basically, one day late in the summer, went cold turkey. We were left to sort out how that's going to work.
For comparison sake, it was nothing like this for our eldest, boy #1. He came to a point where, if he napped in his room, he'd sleep for like two hours and would not be ready for bed at a reasonable time. I have memories of him repeatedly coming out of his room, making a bunch of noise at the (shut) gate at the top of the stairs (especially when my parents were visiting), then usually finding him asleep there on the floor a while later. For him the fix was simple, if it felt a bit silly at times. He was a car sleeper and I could go for like a 15-20 minute drive, he'd nap and get up again without much problem. This provided the right amount of rest needed to make it to the end of his day and no further. Slowly we moved away from doing this and eventually his napping days were over.
This time is way harder, as we should expect by now with #2. He's never slept well in the car and I never even really tried that tact. He also sleeps way deeper and is thereby harder to rouse when it's time to wake up, at least when his body isn't quite ready to do so. There's a great deal of miserable crabbiness in this circumstance, lasting upward of an hour or so, but he'd usually recover and be better in control of himself the rest of the day. Of course, if he got a nap, he'd stay up way too late at night, like 10pm. This became a rough cycle where he was never getting enough sleep and kind of needed a nap the next day, and we started all over again.
Considering this I wasn't entirely opposed when he suddenly made up his mind to be done with it. It was frustrating in the respect that getting him down for naps had heretofore been a simple task. He wanted to do it. Until he didn't. When this came about he'd no longer stay in his bed. I'd find him in the playroom or just playing in his bedroom with the lights on. I've kind of given up, the vast majority of the time anyway. I know him well enough to recognize when he's made up his mind. Plus we avoid the post-wake up crabbiness. Best of all, he crashes hard and falls asleep right away when we put him to bed.
The downside, however, are volatile emotions from mid-afternoon until bed. He really should get a short nap like his brother did but it's not in the cards. Everything that's difficult about him, from general squirrelly-ness, to defiance, to recklessness with himself and everyone around him, gets exaggerated when he's overtired. And now he's overtired a lot. There's a lot more screaming, a challenge I can, but often do not, deal with well. Perhaps the biggest meltdown he's ever had, on the extremely short walk home from the neighborhood pool one night, is the most memorable example so far. Swimming clearly takes a lot out of him and combined with no nap nap it was a disaster. We've been cognizant of that ever since. That one was unfortunate for my wife, who bore the brunt.
So going with it and accepting that naps are gone is the fact of the matter. I have to deal with him all day on the days he's home, not really a problem as he entertains himself pretty well. His imagination is fabulous btw. But a constantly eroding emotional state and, as a result, an inability to constrain his devious side are a daily problem. It's a bit rough. There is some light at the end of the tunnel however as, since he decided that this was how it was going to be, he's already showing more stamina and control. Sometimes.
Pray for us, if you're into that.
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