Alternative to Nap

As I type this, Cavanaugh is sitting on his “special bed” having rest time. The special bed is his crib mattress from the crib he never slept in. It’s on the floor of the master bedroom and is a sometimes location for bedtime stories before he gets in the big bed to go to sleep at night. Other days, he uses it to play “nap.” He’ll lie under the quilt and cover up his head. He tells me, “Go downstairs, have a break.”

As much as I’ve tried to explain that it’s not a break if he pops up two minutes later to say “woke up,” I understand his intentions are good. He’s heard me say I need a break and he wants to help me get one. He just doesn’t want to take a nap.

We are in the middle of another no nap day. I’ve realized that my response to Cavanaugh’s not sleeping has frequently been the same as my reaction to low blood sugar, an increasing impatience that feels like water boiling, the bubbles rising through my body and tightening muscles as they pass. Soon my head is steaming with a need that must be fulfilled right now or I will boil over. That’s not how I want to react to anything, but most especially not to my son.

So last week on one of his worst no nap days ever, the cacophonous voices in my head began asking whether I’ve really spent all of this time trying to create positive sleep associations for him, having him sleep in the family bed, refusing to use cry it out methods or leave him alone when he won’t sleep just to turn sleep into a scary thing now? I started imagining alternatives. At preschools, friends have told me their kids are asked to stay on their mats and play or sit quietly while the other kids sleep. Why not try it at home?

I asked Cavanaugh if he’d like to start having rest time on his special bed for one hour while I work. I told him he could have quiet toys like his magnadoodle, his bead wire maze and some books. He could play quietly while I worked on the computer. I’d set the alarm and he could get off the bed when time is up. He was thrilled with the idea. At least in theory.

So far, he’s been on his bed for 32 minutes, on the bed meaning he’s run over to my chair about five times now to show me a book or say “time to wake up” and then gone back to the bed when I’ve said that it’s still rest time. Currently, he’s got the maze on one side of him, the magnadoodle over his feet and the basket of books on the floor next to his pillow. He has read stories out loud to himself pointing at pictures and naming the camper, the race car, the wheels. He has used the bird magnet to cover the whole magnadoodle screen in black and he has licked some of the beads on his wire maze. Now he’s saying a mantra of “Wanna be quiet,” which really means, “I don’t want to be quiet or rest here anymore, but he’s staying put on the bed. I’ve told him that if he gets tired of resting, he’s welcome to go to sleep until the alarm goes off.

Ultimately, my hope is that Cavanaugh will decide he likes nap better than quiet rest time, but either way, an hour of whatever kind of rest it is will mean that I don’t feel like my day has been hijacked if he doesn’t take a nap and he doesn’t have the responsibility of being in charge of our schedule. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

If you’ve got any suggestions for alternatives to nap, I’d love to hear them. Even though it’s only day one of our experiment, I’m sure I could use more input.