Monday 16 January 2006

the owl-eyed child

Cass has decided he doesn't ever need a nap again. This makes perfect sense to him (why cut down on the time you can spend torturing your sister and making intricate road and street scenarios with every dinky car in the house?) but leaves out the fact that m'boy just can't do it. He can't go like a whirling dervish from 6 o'god in the morning to eight at night - not without falling into puddles of crazy exhausted over-wound boy, and that drives me nuts. It seems I can handle the everyday whines and balkiness from the four year old, but pair that with the super-charged meltdown factor, and I become shrewish.

After about a week of begging, pleading, crying, and 'I hate naps!' he got creative. Now there was a ghost. His bed just wasn't comfortable anymore. 'Mommy! There's a fly in my room!' 'I need a drink of water!' 'I've got to pee!' 'Is that Daddy going into Nancy's (our neighbor) house?' Every excuse in the world....

Well, last Friday Casserole and I had a talk. We discussed naps, and how Michelle's son (the babysitter's boy) doesn't have to take them. (He's 5.) I stopped trying to get Cass to lay down at noon and instead, he goes into his room at 3:30 for a 'rest period'. (This distinction is VERY IMPORTANT to Cass. Resting isn't as babyish, I guess.) This rest period lasts no longer than one hour, and during that time, he is welcome to look at books or play with his toys. He just CANNOT be out of bed.

Since that conversation, he's had two 'rest periods'. In each one, he's gone upstairs quietly, gotten into bed, and...fallen asleep.

I don't claim to have solved the problem. (I probably just jinxed myself.) But anytime I match wits with the canny animal that is the four-year-old and I WIN, it feels a little bit more like I have a handle on this mothering gig.

For the moment, anyway.


5 comments:

Washington Crunchy Mama said...

I love those p'jammies! And your boy-o is such a cutie, good job mommy :)

Crazy MomCat said...

Excellent solution! I have a six-year-old and judging by the size of his meltdown tonight he needs to go BACK to naps himself!

Clover said...

That never worked with my son, but I'm glad it does for yours. The worst is when they get to the point where they get cranking mid-day but if they nap, they can't get to sleep at night. That was a 3 or 4 month period and it sucked because we were damned if we did, damned if we didn't.

Lily'sMama said...

I am having nap issues with my 12 month old! She resists naps so badly - today, I struggled with her for 30 mins for the end result of a 20 min nap! Argh! Motherhood is so hard!!

Angewl said...

Great idea! I hope it keeps working for you!

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