Just When You Think You’ve Got It Figured Out…

You do not mess with the sleep schedule. Credit: surlygirl

…the season’s already changin’. Remember that tune? Well, it applies to parenthood, too. Only, I’d change the lyrics to “Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, the schedule’s already changin’.” Because as soon as you settle into a groove with a schedule with two kids, it’s guaranteed to switch just to keep you on your toes.

My daughter has been on a one-nap sleep schedule for what feels like forever. So when my son was born, I had to readjust to the infant sleep-all-the-time routine. But when he recently dropped his second nap, it was life-changing. His two naps had been the bread of the sandwich to the meat of my daughter’s midday nap, so it meant that our entire days felt like naps, and options for getting out of the house were limited. Add in a couple of days of daycare and babysitting neighbors, and nearly every chunk of time was spoken for. Now that we’re done with daycare and the babysitting swap and the kids’ naps overlap? I feel like we can actually get out of the house and live again. I work as much as possible during those two hours of naptime, so I feel like I’ve got some good solid time during the day to be productive.

But it can’t be all totally sleep-awesomeness right? Right. Because my early-rising daughter changed her wake-up time from 6:30ish to 7 a.m. to a cringe-inducing 5:30 a.m. or 6 a.m. Ouch. After giving it a solid week or so to see if it was a fluke, we decided that something had to change. She was clearly wide awake and ready to roll come the crack of dawn, so we decided that bedtime finally needed to be pushed back. So her glorious 7:30 p.m. bedtime slowly crept to 8, with no difference in waking time. We’re now playing with 8:30 p.m., and things have improved slightly. I’m not ready to cut out that midday nap to see if it makes a difference, and so far, she’s shown no signs of skipping it. (Knock on wood.)

So just when I started getting two awesome midday hours during which to work, I lost about an hour in the evenings. You win some; you lose some. Luckily she’s getting to an age where she is a little more predictable in her destruction and can quietly play with books or puzzles while my hubby catches up on news or while I get a bit of work done. I’ll just try not to get too comfortable with this new schedule because change is just around the bend.

Do your kids keep you on your toes with their ever-shifting schedules, too? —Erin