To Nap or Not To Nap

I have found that parents tend to move the second child to the next stage a lot earlier than the first. Bedtime gets pushed later when they are younger, they move out of the crib earlier than the first child, move out of the high chair more quickly and so on. I think that this is fairly common, but I don't have any stats to back that up. It has certainly been true with Lucas. For example, Elise went to bed at 7:00pm until she was 3 1/2 or 4 but when her bedtime moved to 8, Luke's bedtime quickly followed to that time though he was barely 2. It just didn't make sense putting two kids to bed an hour a part - you quickly realize that the bedtime process then takes like 3 hours. Which is ridiculous. But sometimes your children move on to phases even when you aren't the one contributing to it - they are just ready to move on up on their own.

This summer, realizing that we needed to prepare Elise for afternoon kindergarten, Elise transitioned out of napping and into quiet time (playing and reading quietly in her room for an hour). She was excited to give up the nap, and though some days she still really needed it, the weaning off nap process went pretty smoothly. However, it never occurred to me that there was a possibility that Lucas would also stop napping. And maybe these things are not even related at all. But a few weeks ago, Lucas stopping falling asleep at nap time. I refuse to say "gave up naps" because though HE may have given up, I certainly haven't. He is still two. He is very active. He still needs a nap.

So why isn't he sleeping?

He's been having sleep issues ever since we moved into our new house, and it seems like his anxiety over bedtime and going to sleep by himself at night has switched over to this not napping during the day. It used to be that if he didn't take a nap, he became this puddle of meltdown starting at around 5pm. Luckily, this doesn't appear to be the case anymore. He doesn't meltdown at all in fact, but he does go to bed much more easily at night. Jury is still out on whether that's a positive trade off or not. I feel like he still needs a nap and that he MUST miss that middle of the day sleep (especially since he's typically a 3 hour napper!) but most days even if we keep him in his room for two and a half hours, he just doesn't fall asleep. When I asked him if he's sleeping at daycare he told me "No, I just lay there and look at people" (which was confirmed by his teacher).

Maybe he's just not tired. Or maybe he's just very strong willed. Knowing him, either is possible. As we figure that out, we are going to continue to try to get Lucas to nap. We are hoping this non-nap stretch is just a phase and that we just need to wait it out.

Waiting, waiting, waiting...