Goodbye, Dear Friend. You Will Be Greatly Missed.

No, we haven't lost a friend or family member. But right now, I am mourning the loss of Claire's nap. I wondered when this day would come. I just never expected it to be when she was under 4 years old. Deciding to drop this nap has been tricky for me because Claire will still nap. There is the occasional day where I put her down and she just plays and reads books for the entire "nap" time, but for the most part she sleeps. Solidly. For at least 2 hours. So why drop it? Glad you asked.

When Claire naps, she invariably suffers insomnia when it is time for bed at night. We will put her to bed by 7:30 and she is usually still wide awake at 9:30 or 10:00. Now, in times past when this would happen, she would just play quietly in her room without calling out to us. We would hear her singing sweet songs to her stuffed animals and reading books to herself. It was really quite sweet. But now? Well I made a fatal mistake several months back. Let me explain.

Claire ended up wetting the bed one night because she needed to go potty and was too scared to get up and go by herself. She apparently called and called for me to come get her and take her to the bathroom, but I never heard her over the monitor until she had already wet the bed and started crying. I felt really bad for her so I taught her how to speak directly into the monitor so that I could hear her better in the night. That worked like a charm until Claire realized that she now had a great little tool for calling us at any point. Her own little walkie-talkie if you will.

So now when she is experiencing insomnia, we get countless calls over the monitor in a sing-songy little girl voice. Things like:

"Mooooooommy . . . . I need to huuuuuuuuug you!"

or

"Mooooooommy . . . . I need to telllllllllllllllll you something!"

A couple of nights ago I went to brush my teeth. The bathroom is just outside her door so when I turned on the light, she could see the light under her door. I barely got downstairs before I heard:

"Mooooooommy . . . . what was that light that I saaaaaaaaaaw?"  Now this one I ignored. I was getting really tired of running up and down the stairs to answer her questions that really needed no answer. But in no time she persisted,

"Mooooooommy!! What was that liiiiiiiiiiiiiight that I saaaaaaaaaaaw?"

Me: Still ignoring

"Moooooommyyyyyyyyyy!!! Why did you turn that light on and turn it off agaaaaaaaaaaaain?"

Defeat. With a hearty sigh, I heave myself up the stairs once more to tell her to stop it!

Now on days when Claire has no nap? She falls right to sleep as soon as her sleepy little head hits the pillow. It is evening time bliss I tell ya. So now we are experimenting with the drop of the nap. She seems to handle being awake all day fairly well. Not too cranky and happy to just sit and watch TV. But I don't want her naps to be replaced with just TV. So I am trying to formulate a plan for a more structured "rest time" for her. Any ideas are welcome. I have found a great workbook for the preschooler. She seems to like it, but it requires me to help her with it and I really want something for her to do that can be independent so that I can still use this time of the day for my bible study, cleaning, relaxing, etc, etc.

The other problem (which is a temporary one) is that we are stuck in this condo with none of our own stuff. So all our books, coloring books, toys, etc are still in transit and there is very little for a non-napping girl to do. So it may be just TV and kid movies until we get into the new house.

And as if on cue, my little darling is tugging on my arm so that we can go play mommy and baby alligator. So I'm off.

So long dear nap, it was nice while it lasted!