My youngest turned three earlier this year.
He’s made it very clear he’s done with naps.
Really, he started dropping his nap long before I was ready to admit it. Far too soon, in my opinion. My now five-year-old twins didn’t begin to struggle with nap time until after they were three. So while I was pretty sure the end was in sight for my youngest, it still took me off-guard at just two-and-a-half.
I fought him for awhile. My youngest is so full of energy, so constantly on the move, that it seemed impossible he could be ready to drop his nap. Mostly because I need a break from him each day. Even though he was only napping for about an hour, it was an hour where I didn’t have to parent him. It was time, though. I could tell as bedtime turned into a battle. And he continued to jack-in-the-box out of bed at 8:45 pm...8:47...8:51...8:58...9:02…
I resigned myself to the inevitable. My twins transitioned from nap time to an hour-long quiet time fairly easily when they were three. While we’re still working on a quiet time that works for my youngest, the hours-long bedtime battle wasn’t worth it anymore. Especially not when I was battling him at nap time, too, all to gain a single hour of reprieve a day. Fighting over where and when to sleep made the whole experience stressful rather than relaxing.
When my twins stopped napping I remember casually mentioning it while at a friend’s house. I still recall where I was standing in her white kitchen, kids underfoot, with a whole group of moms for a playdate. I let the words leave my mouth, “The twins are dropping their nap” and every single mom present gave a collective, horrified gasp. As though I hadn’t just said nap time was ending, but something much, much worse. Like that we had all been in a terrible car accident or the kids had gotten severe sunburns or that we were moving to Nebraska.
I laughed at their response but I understood. It’s easy to have a sort of scarcity mindset around the idea of nap time. I’ve utilized nap time over the years for everything from eating my own lunch (in peace!), to reading and writing to cleaning and prepping food for dinner and picking up toys, not to mention to complete countless tasks on my computer without little people hovering over my shoulders or attempting to bang on the keys.
This time around, though, just two years after that playdate announcement, and it seems like less of a loss.
Read the rest about how I kissed naptime goodbye over on the Twin Cities Mom Collective.