Naps - how do you manage weekends??

[matana]

DS and i are fine during the week. We have our routine and work around each other, but he's almost 16 weeks old and now needs a bit more structure to his naps which we've started working on. It's coming on really well.... but then the weekends come around and everything goes out the window.

I have two step daughters who come most weekends either just for the Sunday or for the whole weekend. They adore their little brother, bless them. And naturally my DH wants us to go out and about and do things together. But i find that by the end of the day my poor DS is massively overtired, DH and i get ratty with each other and i am miserable. DH says we can't stop doing things and i agree, but DS's naps are really important right now and i'm finding it hard getting him to nap for an adequate amount of time, factoring in feeds etc.

How do others manage trying to please thewhole family and remain sane?

Have been in the same situation twice as my two DD's are a bit older than the younger ones.

Will he sleep in the car or his buggy? If so, then incorporate that into your outings. We often used to go out somewhere where we had to drive for a bit so went or came back at nap time. Mine would have a nap in the buggy so would make sure we were walking around somewhere at that time.

But I did find that often the naps were shorter so made sure we got the little ones to bed a bit earlier and the next day perhaps tried to stay at home.

Until very recently he'd sleep anywhere any time, but as he's now much more alert he's learned it's much more exciting to stay awake, especially when his big sisters are around!

He'll sleep in the car for as long as it's moving and in his buggy if he's tired enough (he has to be pretty exhausted though). So he generally only snatches 10 minutes here or 15 minutes there and invariably wakes up after catnapping.

The trouble is that we don't tend to travel far when we have my stepdaughters for just a day as they have to be home at a certain time, which doesn't allow us much flexibility. So any trips out in the car are quite short. I think (hope) it'll be easier when the weather improves as we can go out for more walks - although they're teenagers so will probably get bored.