First of all – I survived. Haha. I’m going to be honest… dropping the morning nap was a ROUGH transition for us. Brighton has been the BEST sleeper since about 6 weeks. I attribute it all to the book Moms On Call. They have amazing sleep schedules that we thrived on. (More on this later!) Brighton was consistently sleeping a solid 1-1.5 hours in the morning and then had another solid 2-2.5 hour nap in the afternoon. But out of nowhere, she started refusing her afternoon naps and it was HORRIBLE.
The pediatrician told me at our 12 month appointment to hold on to two naps a day for as long as humanly possible. I tried my best, but when she started refusing her afternoon nap I knew something had to change ASAP. She was only sleeping about one hour in the morning and then would get so crabby in the afternoon. At a complete loss for what to do, I polled my Instagram friends. I got a few tips, but mostly just suggestions telling me to grab a bottle of wine and deal. Haha. FYI… it does take the edge off.
After about 2 weeks of dealing with this madness, I pulled up my Moms On Call book on my phone to read what they had to say about transitioning down to one nap. I’m telling you, people. These Moms On Call schedules are life.
The first thing I read was that the child has to consistently refuse to nap for a solid two weeks. This tells you that they are ready to make the transition. Then, they suggest picking a time between noon and 1 pm to start the nap and setting an end time to the nap 3 hours later. Ideally the child gets a minimum of 1.5 hours of sleep, but absolutely no more than 3 hours and it must end before 4 pm.
With our morning nap usually starting around 10 am, I was having the hardest time keeping her awake until noon. We did ALL the things. We went to the zoo and to Target and for long walks and read books and listened to loud(ish) music… the list goes on and on! The best I could do was 12:15 pm and she would crash. Unfortunately, she was waking up an hour later – an hour and a half if we were lucky. This went on for an entire week!
It sucked. I couldn’t get anything done. We were both so crabby. I felt guilty leaving her in her crib screaming, so I would go get her. Again, I turned to complaining on Instagram, haha, and Moms On Call casually slid into my DMs. Thank God! They gave me solid (and supportive!) advice that I have to share:
“They can cry play or sleep but give them that down time. We can’t make them sleep right? So we control what we can which is the nap routine. The time they go down and the time nap is over. Great job momma!! Usually takes about 7-10 days to get it all worked out.” @momsoncall
On the seventh day, I immediately established our boundaries. The nap will start at 12:45 pm and end at 3:45 pm. No exceptions. Guess what? She slept the entire three hours. [Insert heavenly music here!]
With our new Moms On Call rules in place, Brighton is thriving. There are days that she doesn’t sleep the full three hours. However, she doesn’t mind playing in her crib. She just talks to her little sleeping friends, ya know, those blanket things with the stuffed animal heads? Those. And she’s fine!
Brighton sleeps from 7:30 pm until 7:30 am and has this incredible three hour nap in the afternoon. We are all living our best life over here now that this has been sorted out. For anyone who is having sleeping issues with their child, it’s not too late to implement routine and start getting some solid Z’s.
If all else fails… have Winc wine delivered to your house asap. Here is a $22 discount + free shipping which comes out to 4 bottles of wine for less than $40. You’re welcome. 😉
$22 Off Membership Promotion
XO, Lauren
