One of the amazing things that got to happen because we stayed home was transitioning to napping in the house and not the car. If you been following, I think I have mention how much I hated dealing with naps. The kids had struggled from early on. Only napping 10-15 minutes when they were a few weeks old. Once they hit 6 months, I fought for months on end trying to create a schedule and get them to sleep in their cribs. It would work great for a few weeks then come crashing down. I work to build it back up just for it to crash again. It involved LOTS of crying from them and usually 30 minutes max of sleep. Around 14 months I gave up and said I had enough. I fought the battle and I decided that they won we would just get in the car during naps. They were starting to transition to one nap a day so that made this a little more possible. So for the last 4 months or so I would hop in the car run errands, and let them fall asleep and then park in the garage and work on costumes, or play on my phone while they napped. Or even took a nap myself.
Over break, we try to go hiking around nap time thinking they can just nap in the stroller. Both times they fell asleep on the way there, got 5 minutes of sleep, woke up when we transferred them and stayed awake for the whole hike. So by 3pm or so they were crashing on the couch in the house. So we decided to run with this. They had NEVER fallen asleep on the couch. The last time they fell asleep with people around was probably 4 months old. With Marcus home to help I took full advantage. We would take them out of the house right before their 11am nap and take them somewhere fun. Pool, bouncey place, parks, etc. Then race home quickly, sometimes stopping for lunch to take them out to encourage them to make it till we got home. We played a little once we got home and then they would sit down on the couch and watch TV and eventually passing out.
Dad also help demonstrate the process too.
Now that Marcus is back to work, I was on my own today. And it worked well! C got his blankets and friends climb up on the couch. I put the TV on and within 4 minutes he was passed out and G was a few minutes behind him. At which point I got to turn the TV off and do a workout for 90 minutes while they slept.
Its nice to be out of the car. I really didn't mind it cause it was the better of the two options I had. It was my goal to work on naps in the new year. Not thinking it would go so well, but so glad it did. So now we are taking a nap at 1pm for 90-120 minutes. I'll take that. Perhaps we will even work up to napping in our cribs (But not until I fully enjoy this first). Though our next milestone might be removing the night bottle that VERY long overdue. Its the only time they get a bottle and its right before bed. We tried a sippy cup one night and they did not like the idea. But bed times was the one area they have always done great in and they don't do pacifiers, thumbs, blankets, so we decided we allow them the bottle to soothe themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.