Naptimes: Two to One

I thought it would be so easy. So simple, more like when we switched from three naps to two. But this process has been a bit more difficult that I expected, probably because it's a bit too early for them to give up one nap, and because I haven't been as diligent as I should. We started on Monday, July 23, and I suspect we're almost finished with the transition ... one can hope!

Caroline asked for more information about the nap-switch, so I am happy to oblige.

On the two-nap schedule, the twins were waking up around 7 a.m., nap at 9 a.m., nap at 2 p.m., and bedtime around 7 p.m. My goal was to push the morning nap later and later, and shorten the afternoon nap shorter and shorter, until they meet in the middle, more or less (technique courtesy Moxie).

The first day went like this:

Out of bed: 8:00 (what crazy luck!)
Breakfast: 9:00
In bed for nap: 10:30 – 12 noon
Lunch: 12:15
Play, errands, snack, Children’s Museum
Nap in Car: 3:40-4:20
Dinner: 6:00
In bed: 7:30

A week later (July 30), here's how a day went:

Out of bed: 8:00
Breakfast: 8:30
Activity: B&N, pet store (a thwarted attempt at bookstore storytime ended up at the pet store)
Home & snack
In bed for nap: 11-12:30
Lunch: 12:45
Activity: play with grandmom & snack
Nap in bed: 3:45-4:45
Dinner : 5:30
In bed: 7:30

And here's how today (August 17) went:

Out of bed: 8:00
Breakfast: 8:30
Play: 9:00 - 11:30 (snack in their somewhere)
Lunch: 11:30
Nap: 12-2
Snack at 3:30
Dinner at 5:30
Bedtime at 7:30

I had a really hard time enforcing the very short early evening nap, because I so enjoyed the peaceful, quiet time to myself (or do get dinner ready!). I often let them sleep quite a while (4-5:30 or so), which is why I started out just driving them around in the car. That worked quite well when J was out of town for so long, but got old quickly, once someone was expecting an adult dinner!

Luckily, I had a babysitter this morning, who brought her toddler son over, so it helped to keep the kids awake and busy when they would normally be tired. I'm really hoping that today was the big hump they needed to get over it, and that perhaps we'll start having some of those long, luxurious afternoon naps I keep hearing about.

More to come soon: the exciting results of the 15 month checkup (which happened closer to 16 months), and thought about the big 'more babies?' question...