Now the great debate has begun: one nap or two? Since I'm returning to work Monday (gasp!), I've been very anxious to get a grasp on Kate's napping/sleeping schedule so my mom will be prepared to take over baby duty. Well, we thought we had everything figured out....until this week.
The past few months Kate has been sleeping from 7:30-8pm until around 7 or 7:30am, napping at 9:30 or so until 11am, and again at 2pm until 3:30 or 4pm. This schedule has been very good and predictable for us and a great schedule for my mom to follow. However, several times this week Kate has woken up very early in the morning (4-5am) and seems ready to play. Believe me, her mommy and daddy are so not ready to play at 4am!
Despite all the rocking, snuggling, feeding, cuddling we do at that time, it takes Kate forever to fall back asleep. In fact, there are times when she will stay awake for an hour or two before falling back to sleep. This is not typical almost-one-year-old behavior! The other day (after waking at 4am and going back to sleep at 7am), we decided to keep her up and skip her morning nap. Unfortunately, the weather has been pretty yucky this week so we didn't get any outdoor stimulation, but we got the next best thing...mall stimulation!
As you can imagine, we got lots of "your baby looks tired" comments and our normally happy, playful, and precious baby was somewhat fussy and required her paci in the morning (we try to reserve it for sleep only). Well, after we finished our mall excursion, we headed for home to eat lunch. Kate ate, played for about 20 minutes, and then we headed upstairs for some pre-nap soothing time. Despite my fear that Kate would be extra fussy from being over-tired, she went to sleep fairly quickly and slept for about 2 1/2 hours. She woke up happy and refreshed and we enjoyed the rest of our night falling back into our old routine. Oh yeah, did I mention she slept through the night that night?!?!
So....I'm still a little unclear as to when I should drop the morning nap completely. Things I've read say most babies keep the morning nap until about 15-18 months. However, a quick poll of my facebook mommy friends seems to suggest that most people dropped their child's morning nap around a year. Well, since I'm relinquishing care to my mom in a couple of days I've decided that the best thing is not for me to worry about it, but her! :)
A little rainy day fun in the car (disclaimer: the car was not moving)
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