Baby's Nap Time

[Peoplearesoweird]

My sister has been a Mum for a couple of years now and is a good one but the odd thing, I find a bit strange....

She read lots of books before she gave birth as I'm sure we all did, as she wants to do the best for her baby.

What has come to light recently is that she has decided she can never come to see us for a weekend again as it will interrupt the baby's nap time if he's in the car travelling to us when he's usually sleeping.

To give it a bit of context, we live 1.5 hours from each other and due to that and busy lives, we rarely see each other. Last time it was an 18 month gap because they were too busy to see us. Even our usual Christmas meet up was cancelled because they couldn't fit us in. Usually we take it in turns to go to each others houses but now she'd like us to go to their house only and they're not going to make the trip anymore to see us.

I totally understand that babies need routine but if they have to sleep once or twice a year in the car, I would have thought that would be fine.

What adds to the issue is that my sister's boyfriend's family live even further away than us and they see them fairly regularly.

AIBU?

I had one that was adaptable, and one that needed to be kept on schedule or we'd have a couple of days (and more importantly, nights) of over tired screaming. We would arrange to do long journeys at nap time so it didn't keep us at home, but honestly I just didn't enjoy travelling with her and her sleep was always shit when we were away anyway so I generally hated it. Suspect your sister is just exhausted and not at her most resilient.

Oh yes I totally get that and every situation is different and you have to do what is right for you. It's the fact that driving to the boyfriend's family is never an issue :(

I was anal like this so I understand your sister, but I was like this with everyone. Luckily they were happy to come to me. Maybe she feels like she can't say no to them

Stop going to see her. Silly girl will soon wake up and smell the coffee if enough people stop pandering to her. She will be pretty isolated!

If you are making the effort to go and see them then they should be making the effort to come and see you too. Yes, it can be annoying when naps go awry but for once a year she should make the effort (if she wants to see you). I’d just say it’s your turn to come to us and if she doesn’t then I wouldn’t go.

To PP, it's not pandering. I was disciplined with naps because to me having a baby sleep for 12 hours through the night was worth it. No one had a problem with it, it's not that hard to go easy on your friend for a year surely if they're a good friend (or family member) that you actually like! 😉

Silly girl

Nice bit of patronisation for a grown woman there.

OP, baby naps can drive some people completely round the bend, especially if your baby is one who isn’t adaptable sleeping on the go, and very especially when poor naps effect their night sleep and have a knock on effect to the following day. I had twins – both horrendous nappers – and while I would have happily carted them about in the car, it just wasn’t worth it for the misery it bought us. My in laws lived 1.5hrs away too and timing it was very very difficult.

I imagine her in laws/husband are insisting and making it a bit crap for her – you don’t have to do the same. The napping years will end.

Do you expect her to travel during baby's naptime? That's the only difference I can think of. If not then she's more likely just using baby's nap as an excuse since she has no issues with travelling further.

I'm strict about naptime because DS just doesn't sleep the same in a car or a pushchair which means he's an overtired, screaming grump who isn't pleasant to be around and certainly wouldn't be much company for family visits so he naps in his cot only. It's worth it when it means a happy toddler and one who sleeps well at night.

No of course I don't expect her to drive during nap time but the fact that I see her travelling to other members of the family during nap time hurts. I think she's trying to manipulate the situation and to be fair, I say baby as that's what she says but he is two now. Her boyfriend's parents live 2.5 hours away and that doesn't seem to be an issue ever.

I can well imagine that the in-laws are making it a nightmare for her but last year she visited them at least 6 or 7 times but we didn't see them at all. Doesn't that need to be addressed, especially if she's being bullied?

Kid won't be napping forever. Just take it as an odd idiosyncrasy and accept it.