7.02.2009

Naps: Two were never enough. One is TORTURE.

I'm going to keep this brief.

Some of you may have noticed I've been writing a lot less lately. It's not because I don't have shit to say, it's because I have no time to say it. - Currently, I have stuffed my toddler with fish sticks, veggie soup, and a cookie and locked him (yes LOCKED him) in his "zone" just so I could zip down these thoughts. -

Why don't I have time anymore? you ask. Well, because we've reached that dreaded napping plateau, the weariest of points of no return: Hollis will only take one nap a day.

Now, to be fair, he's not one-napping it every day - he throws me a bone about once or twice a week. But on those one-nappers I don't know how he does it. I'm freaking exhausted by 4 o'clock. I had no idea I relied so heavenly on nap breaks until now.

Yesterday, after butting heads with him all day long (less the blissful, albeit late and short, morning nap time) and feeling like a complete mothering failure because I couldn't figure out how to get him to NOT throw a tantrum I had to tell him, "Hollis, Mommy has a booboo in her head and she needs to lay down to feel better. You're going to hang out in your crib while I do this, ok?"

Thank God he was content with this arrangement and played quietly for about 45 minutes while I stared at the ceiling fan contemplating my tired ass navel.

Today we went to my friend's pool, our first real pool-excursion ever. It didn't tire him out in the least. Mommy required another quick afternoon nap, but he powered through with his Baby Animals book and bouncing on his crib mattress.

I'm jealous, proud and want to cry all at the same time. God help me...

4 comments:

  1. Oh God I hear you. And I work full time! I picked up my kids at 4:45. We got home at 5ish. Ate dinner. (That was already cooked by my mother-in-law, because seriously when the hell am I suppose to cook dinner if I get home after 5???) They ate, we played played played went to WalMart so they could run around 'cause it was raining, they played, home, bath time, play play play, oldest goes to sleep at 8 and baby at 9. I'm EXHAUSTED! Obv. most of the time Christos doesn't nap anymore, and Dimitry's 1 nap a day is right after lunch. Around noon. He'll sleep for 2 hours. And then he's go go go go until 9 p.m.
    You're lucky that Hollis actually played by himself in his crib for 45 minutes! That's great! Maybe you should try to push his nap back until after lunch... then you can power nap with him? Good luck. It is tough. It's tiring. It is always tiring!

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  2. Cave Baby seems to be transitioning down to one nap and she's only 10 months old! At least it's a long nap (2 hours and counting). You've got to count your blessings!

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  3. Much sympathy for you. I guess it was a good thing that my daughter only took two twenty minute naps a day because I hardly missed it when she gave one up. If it is any consolation the one nap will probably last for two hours or so.
    And not to make it worse but going from one nap to no nap is even worse.
    Good luck!

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  4. I miss naps - My daughter who is now 34 months old dropped all naps about a year ago, and it was more traumatizing for me than it was for her. I guess the upside is she is out cold by 7:30 or 8:00p.m. Just keep repeating to yourself, "this too shall pass" over and over again until you forget why you were saying it in the first place. Sometimes I do it all day long - you do what you have to do to get through the day I guess. GOOD LUCK!!
    Maria @BOREDmommy

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