Naps - do you let them rule your life?

[Cm17]

FTM, Lo is 18 months old has 1 nap a day and when we are home they are pretty consistent.
She does go to a childminder full time and has a nap during the day there.

However i feel like I let nap time over rule our weekends together as a family and plan things around being home for naps like visiting parents/popping to the shops/soft play etc

Swimming is a big one for me, we took her swimming for the first time when she was 5 months old and she loved it straight away! We took her every week but since we've both been back at work she has only been maybe twice due the swim times falling on her nap time.

Now that summertime is approaching and we both work full time, I want weekends to be about us getting out and doing things as a family, especially now she understands alot more things.

I know its probably me overthinking it more than i need to but how do/did you work things around nap time?

being 18 months old now would you just do the things you want to do with your lo and let them nap when it happens around it?

OK, @ForestFae , so one day you wake at 7am, sleep at 9am, stay awake until 330am, is that about right?

And you don’t eat anything until 2, then eat a huge meal and don’t eat anything again until 1 in the morning?

Thats pretty much what you’re describing.

I am not militant about sleep or meal times. I get up when DS gets up which is usually 6, but left to my own devices I’d probably naturally wake any time between half six and half seven and go to bed between half 9 and half 11. I eat lunch any time between 12 and 2 and dinner any time between 6 and 8.

But claiming that the 24 hour clock makes no difference to sleep and meal times is disingenuous. Even with no job and no school most people sleep for around eight hours in that period, which means that eating and other activities are done in the other. And not many people choose to be nocturnal (I know some have no choice.)

Different children do different things.

I mean I wouldn’t often sleep 2 hours after waking up however I have done that if DH takes the kids and I can go back to sleep as I’m not a morning person 🤷🏻‍♀️ I also have massively varying sleep needs, so one day I might be fine with 7 hours but other days I need 11+ hours sleep. I personally will just eat if I’m hungry, and not eat if I’m not.

I often feel as if my own circadian rhythms don’t operate on a 24 hour clock, it’s like it’s set to longer than 24 hours which means that I feel tired at different times each day. My kids seem similar. We just follow whatever cues we have that day. I don’t know why people find this weird, cues exist for a reason!

@ForestFae you really don't get why people find this weird? Do you have any understanding of normal society at all?!

I still personally think there's more than a touch of goady fuckery about this, no one is this clueless about how the world operates.

Yes I do know how society operates, but surely people are aware it’s socially constructed and that natural cues exist for a reason, therefore while it may be unusual to do it in today’s society, it not “weird” in fact it’s arguable more normal than constructed routines.

@ForestFae the "societally constructed" norms are based on natural cues. Yours just seem to be different to everyone else's. As you can see from this thread, most people wake, sleep and eat at the same times each day. Their bodies follow a rhythm, similar rhythms to everyone else's, and that is why society's rhythm has developed in the way that it has.

The fact that you have no rhythm makes you weird, not everyone else.

Complete rubbish that everyone follows the same rhythm, you only have to look at how night owls struggle to see that. It also varies culturally what time breakfast, dinner etc is expected to be. So no it’s not universal at all

@ForestFae yes, societies are different in different places, and there is variation in rhythms, but the point is, people follow a rhythm, same things at the same time each day, which you're saying you don't.

It's fine that you operate differently, there's nothing wrong with that, if it works for you, but I really don't get why you're doubling down on everyone else being the weird ones when you seem to be the only person on this thread (and society at large) who lives completely divorced from cultural norms.

Yes we structure our days around naps. In my defence my DS never slept for longer for 45 mins during his first 12ms. So I treasure and protect it now!

@ForestFae
Mealtimes are at a different time each day, and no, mornings look different every single day. I don’t have a pattern of “get up, get dressed, get breakfast” … I find it odd that adults have a routine about things like getting up, it reminds me of robots, but I understand people do it.

Oh come on you find it weird that people might get washed and dressed then eat shortly after waking?? Really? You find that robotic? FS it’s hardly a to the minute prescriptive routine.

I do find it hard to believe that you don’t wake up and give your kids breakfast. I just don’t buy that you are actually eating dinner at 3am and your napping children sometimes go 5 hours after waking before eating.

You are acting like the rest of the world operate on this weird system of napping when not tired, eating when not hungry because it’s breakfast time or not eating because it’s not hungry. You don’t work and home educate so aren’t bound by a start time, really not that weird.
Do whatever works for you but this bizarre notion that you’re the only one responding to your children’s cues is just mental.

The thing I don't understand about your average week @ForestFae is if you, your DH and 3 kids are eating whenever they want, sleeping whenever they want...

How are your kids supervised? Is little Johnny on his own when mum and dad are asleep at whatever hour, and 20 minutes later, the other 2 kids have fallen asleep on the stairs and the washing machine.

Do they have to come and wake a parent up to get a meal cooked for them? Do they just get cooked ad-hoc meals? You could feasibly be making 5 different dinners at 5 different times?

How do you visit people/places at set times? If you have zero idea if you/DH/children will be awake, or eating dinner, around 11am when so and so said they were free?

So..some days you might not brush your teeth? Or actually do you always brush your teeth before bed? And again in rising?

You shower at random times? Never always before bed/at wake up?

You don't always wash hands after going to the loo?

You don't always take off shoes/hang up coat etc after coming in from outside?

You never have awash routine? You literally wash random parts of your body in a random order? You never wash your hair first, and then your body when having a shower?

You never do shopping at the same place? And you never ever do shopping in the same sort of order when you do(ie head to veg section, then fridge, then freezer) . You just want around the stores?

You never ever do the same sort of things around Christmas and the like? You mix it up every time?

You never ever do things like get dressed before going out? You don't always lock the front door as the last thing of leaving the house?

These are all routines

So no, I don't believe you when you say you "have no routines"

Because you do.

Lol this comment shows you have no knowledge of what a house of 5 adhd people is like. We absolutely do not walk around the grocery store in the same order or wash hair a specific way 😂 and I’ve had to go out the back door because I’ve lost my keys far too many times to count!

And no, none of us shower at set times and yes I brush my teeth but again the time will vary wildly. As for waking up, sometimes I’ll wake up before the kids, sometimes they’ll wake up before me and if so they’ll either play in their rooms or come and wake me up. Why is this weird to you?

I don’t necessarily do the supermarket shop in a set order either, but that’s a tiny part of what the above poster is saying.

I think what has happened here is that it’s easy to assume that a person with a set routine is a sort of dreaded pedestrian dull person, which I don’t think is fair at all.

When DS was a baby, he didn’t really have much of a routine. He would sleep when he was tired and that would sometimes be in the pram, car, sling. It didn’t matter if I wanted to spend the day having coffee with friends or walking around a national trust property.

That probably started to shift at around the ten month mark (as in it got harder) and by fifteen months DS was no longer sleeping in the pram. Or wanting to be in it at all really! He’d also been on one nap a day for a while at this point and predictably this nap would fall in the middle of the day.

I’ve had quite a hard time with DS night time sleep. For a very long period he would wake up a couple of hours after going to sleep hysterical and refuse to go back in his cot, so he’d end up sleeping on me and it was so suffocating. And he still woke all the time. I was getting virtually no quality sleep and no downtime and it’s only when I look back I realise how badly it was affecting me. We sleep trained him about a month ago and the difference it’s made to all of us is remarkable. I used to be a mostly pleasant person: kind and patient and understanding. When DS sleep was at its worst, that went out of the window: I used to feel as if I hated him and I was tense about everything - the naps (if they went wrong the nights would be worse) food (if he didn’t eat well I’d panic as again, bad night) too tired to properly engage with him, feeling like I hated my husband as he slept and I didn’t.

Now, well, I can only be honest here and say I feel like a nice person again. I’m so happy and relaxed and I adore my DS and feel so awful I resented him through exhaustion. I read and sing and engage with him.

And we have loads of fun! We don’t live our lives according to the exact timings on a clock. Every day he’s with me we feed ducks, we play on the swings, we go to the farm, we go swimming, we go to soft play, we go to the theatre, for bike rides, for exploring the countryside.

The semblance of a routine doesn’t mean I am a strict or uptight parent. On the contrary, it allows me to be a much more relaxed, loving and dare I say it, better parent than the ‘old’ ways we had.

I’m not telling you your way is wrong, @ForestFae , but you must appreciate no parent of a child young enough to need a nap can get up when they feel like it. And it’s that edge to your posts that people are baffled by.

Haven’t read through the whole thread but from what I’ve read so far I find it interesting that those who are so flexible in their routines are so INflexible with in their way of thinking 😉.

My first DCs napped have and still do rule our day, 95% of the time. Pandemic baby as others have said, which might be part of the reason but even as a newborn their eyes would ping open as soon as buggy/car stopped. I’d be other people stood drinking a coffee in the park with a buggy not in motion and be like what is this witchcraft?? Even now, if DC1 is tired they go upstairs and even once in their room try to climb into their cot. It’s like the thought of sleeping somewhere else is just not on their radar. Dropping off somewhere else tells me one thing only… they are ill. It’s my first sign.

second DC, only a few weeks old but so far sleeping a lot better in noise etc. however, also sometimes won’t sleep and then gets very overtired. Of course, have to go with the flow a bit better second time around but if you can help a PFB not get miserable and overtired why wouldn’t you?! It’s not forever and the downtime as others have said is great.

if you do have a DC that can’t sleep on the go, it can be easy to get wrapped up in this. It took me a while to let go for special occasions, but again, pandemic so this wasn’t an issue for a long time!

i know adults that can sleep in public I.e. on planes etc and some that need a dark quiet private room. We’re just all different and there’s nothing wrong with that. I really do think we are all baby led, in the sense some of us have babies that are happy to go with the flow and some of us are shown that they are happier with a routine. Less judgement on the matter would be a good thing I think…

@ForestFae your posts are interesting because all the research on children and adults all point towards a routine being better than no routine.
esp with children, it introduces a predictability that children seem to be thriving on.

There has also been some studies around the effect of light (the guys went down a cave and stayed there with no clock etc… for a a few months). They found that he did actually get into a routine even Wo clock or sunlight but his day was slightiy longer than our 24 hours. So we, as humans, seem to be thriving on routine even if the routine isn’t always obvious.

HOWEVER, it is clear that some children do very well with less routine than others. I’ve seen a child who would go to bed and wildly different times in the evening but would sleep the same number if hours (so she would go to bed at 8.00pm and wake up at 7.00am But the day after go to bed at 12.00am~1.00am and then get up at 12.00pm). This is extremely unusual though.

We are having an absolutely hellish day thanks to DS falling asleep in the car and then waking up tearful and angry.

Yeah, I’ll keep the routine.

@Taskmeister i think babes and toddlers rain their parents to what is working for them, not the other way around….
Which is good because it means that parents then adjust to what the child needs rather than the other way around.

I remember when dc1 was little, it was the height of extremely structured routine with set nap time at set times. I also remember tying it and failing miserably because …. My baby obviously hadn’t read the book and just didn’t want to sleep at those times lol.
As you said babies are individuals. Berating a parent because they have a routine isn’t helpful. (Nor is it helpful to tell they are wrong if they say said child need complete silence etc….). They are who they are 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I completely agree