Our son used to take really long naps in the early afternoon. Now he hardly takes naps at all. Something has changed and it makes for longer days with Mom and Dad scrambling to do things with an awake child rather than an asleep one. This certainly makes it more difficult for Mom and Dad but also for the child. While he’s quite content to stay awake as long as he possibly can, that is not always the best course of action for a little one to take.
Recently our son has taken to not sleeping at all during the day (save the occasional snooze during car trips to and from work). He tries his best to sleep in and stay up late. Long past the time when Mom and Dad are ready for bed is when our son decides that it might be time for slumber. This is creating a problem. Unfortunately it is not yet one we have found a solution for.
Luckily, the winter holiday break is coming up and both Mom and Dad will be largely free to direclty address (as a parenting team) the lifestyle our son has currently taken up. In some ways I feel like I’m talking about a teenager: he stays up late, sleeps in, trashes his room, and throws fits every once in a while. Thankfully, since his parents are his whole world there shouldn’t be any major issues in modifying his schedule through routine (something we haven’t had much of recently thanks to my exams).
Perhaps a worthy question to ask: anyone have advice on modifying your childrens’ schedules and helping them (and yourself) deal with the changes both while they’re being made and when they’re established? Valuable lessons ahead: we’ve moved from snuggle and feed and change to something much more difficult — parenting.