Schedule Changes

Just when you get really good at something, everything changes. Well that's what's happening here this week. We're switching to 1 nap a day! My kids are big nappers and I always thought I'd wait to switch until they were 18 months old, but I finally decided to go ahead and do it now. The kids haven't been napping well lately and everyone has said you'll really like 1 nap a day vs. 2 so we took the plunge. Although Thursday & Friday last week the kids took 2 two hour naps each day and so I was really questioning if I should make the switch now. We also had a really tough time switching from 3 naps to 2 so I was really dreading the schedule change this time around.
BUT...they're doing really well. They haven't been as cranky as I thought they'd be although they are eating me out of house and home now. They snack the entire morning (during their old nap time). I thought they may just want to be eating since they were tired, but a friend of mine said hers did the same thing for about 3 weeks until their bodies adjusted to the new schedule. We'll see...I'm not a big snacker so it's really driving me crazy that they want to continually eat now!
We fill the mornings with different activities like going to the mall to walk around or play in their play area, go to story time, etc. Anything to keep them occupied and not let them think about the fact they should be napping. They now go down at 12:30, just after lunch and are supposed to sleep for about 3 hours (or at least that's what I've been told!). But so far, mine are only sleeping for an hour and a half. Hmmm...I'll give them a couple more weeks to figure out they're supposed to sleep longer. Hopefully they will.
The days are long right now. I have to say I actually liked the day when we were on 2 naps. It really broke everything up for me. Now I have to come up with so many different things to entertain them for long stretches of time (and our attention span isn't very long). I also haven't figured out how I'm going to do our "field trips". Normally we'd do things over lunch and head back home early afternoon for our nap. But now, I'm not really sure what we'll do since they're down (or at least in their crib for quiet time) from 12:30 - 3. We'll have to do things in the morning I guess (I really don't want to battle rush hour traffic with the kids in the afternoon), but I'm afraid they'll catnap in the car on the way home and won't want to nap any more once we arrive home. Then we'll be in for a long, cranky day since that will be the only sleep they get during the day!