Seems like a pretty simple question with a very easy answer, of course NAP!!! That is until you have 3, 3 year olds who's sleep patterns are changing & are very messed up as far as sleeping all night, waking up WAY too early & are just plain cranky. Mommy doesn't do well without adequate sleep either, so we have been a pleasant group the past few months!
Around the first of the year, Caden started waking up in the middle of the night crying, I would go in & console him without getting him out of bed & would usually end up laying with him until he fell back to sleep. Most nights he would wake again & I'd have to go back & console him again. It took a few days to figure out but I believe he was having growing pains. It went on for a couple of weeks & then one day we were at the doctor for a cold or something & found out he had grown 2 inches.
Kellan loves to snuggle!
It wasn't long after Caden finally started sleeping all night again that Kellan started waking up anywhere between 2 & 4:30am & thought it was morning. At this point I was at a loss. He didn't seem hungry & he wasn't crying, just awake & ready to play. I decided our days could NOT start that early & after a couple days I just started telling him it was still night time & he had to go back to bed. It was a fight & involved screaming on his part & sleeping on the floor, blocking him from opening the bedroom door on my part. Fun right?! :(
After a few weeks of this I decided something had to give. I REALLY DID NOT want to give up naps but I really couldn't go on getting up every night or sleeping on the floor, not to mention I'm sure our neighbors were not fond of the toddler screaming in the middle of the night. So I finally gave in & gave up on naps. The first few days were tricky & finally I figured out timing was everything. I did not want them dozing off. If we weren't going to have naps then I had to keep them awake all day. Come late afternoon they all wanted to sleep, dozing in the car or on the couch. So I changed up our days a little & we started going to the pool during the time they were wanting to fall asleep & staying right up until dinner time.
Garren just can't keep up after a swim.
This worked out well for a few weeks, the boys were falling right to sleep at bedtime & sleeping all night without any interruptions. Kellan wasn't waking super early anymore either. Garren however was suffering a bit. Of the 3 boys, Garren really likes to sleep & is a good sleeper. He also requires a little more sleep than his brothers. So he slowly started losing his cool. He wasn't listening well, he was crying at the drop of a hat & was becoming an all out brat! Caden had started waking in the middle of the night crying again & Kellan was starting to wake a little earlier again. So I decided to let them try napping again to see if they would revert back to not sleeping all night & to help with the overly tired & cranky Garren.
So far so good this week. Most days all 3 boys have napped, one day Kellan didn't fall asleep & another day neither he or Caden did. Garren has napped every day though. They are going to bed pretty good, they fall right to sleep once they settle down but aren't as exhausted so it takes a few minutes to get them to settle down. They are also still sleeping ALL night. Caden wakes in the wee hours, around 5 or so, calling for me but lays right back down once I go in their room. I just sleep the last couple hours with them & that's just fine with me. It's WAY better than waking in the middle of the night to party! Hopefully it stays like this, or even improves past Caden's cry outs & we don't have to go back to no naps.
