Mission Nap

Well this lunchtime we have been trialling the Battle of Wills © nap-plan.  This has followed a week of Katie quite forcefully insisting that she no longer required a nap. 
Fair enough you’d think, but this has coincided with a week of the most grumpy, impressively high-maintenance moods of her life.  The last two days I have been in work, and boy was it a break!

I feel like the other two are being sold a bit short time-wise because of Miss High Maintenance and, as luck would have it, on Radio 4 this morning was a sleep expert who felt that 10 minutes of crying was no bad thing to establish a good routine.  Good to have Radio 4 as my backup.  And while I have not generally been good at parenting by routine, my gut instinct is that this loss of the nap is not something she can cope with every day yet.  So we are giving it a go …

We (I) had a long chat this morning about how much sense this all made, before going upstairs.  K - equally seriously - informed me that she begged to differ, although she was happy to humour me on the 400 stories thing.  And grabbing onto all the tables & chairs in sight (the wood thing) it does seem to be working so far.  There were about 5 minutes of disgruntled protests, but not the hysterical crying she’s greeted nap times with this week, followed by 10 minutes of chatting to herself, another 2 minutes or so of mild resistance, & then quiet.  Woohoo!!

If this only works a couple of days a week, it’s a result as far as I’m concerned.  The house has descended into a pit of chaos, and I’ve been catching up with bit of work late at night when I really don’t think so well.   Obviously the arsing about on twitter and blogging is not the best ever illustration of this point, but hey-ho.

So now we just have to get through Charlotte’s school ukele concert this afternoon.  And after Katie’s show-stopping performance in the chemist yesterday, my expectations are not high.  People keep saying to me, “Is she the youngest child?” And nodding knowingly …