conquering the "nap trap"

Ok, I cannot take credit for the "nap trap" term, but I do love it dearly. My friend Tara who has baby bunched twice with her four kids--my hat is off to you girl--passed this phrase along. Secretly, I'm hoping she coined the phrase because then I can give her lots of credit here.

Nap Trap: Any Baby Buncher will tell you there is a period when your little one is between 4-12 months and on mutiple naps and your older child still, we hope and pray, is taking a very good afternoon nap. The result means you could be trapped inside all day doing naps.

Basics to the Nap Trap: Your wee one will need to nap at least twice a day, if not three times. Accept it. There is nothing you can do about it. Learn to love your home during this period and embrace the indoors. If you work outside the home, woo hoo, bonus points!

But don't despair, there are always ways around it. Here's the down low on getting through the Nap Trap.

1. Accept your kids' nap schedules. It's temporary.

2. Host playgroups at YOUR house so people can sleep when they need to, your toddler gets playtime with new faces and you get friends to chat with for your sanity. Put on a pot of coffee and call it good.

3. Once your little one gets on a regular nap schedule (3-4 months), we found it helpful to actually write out the naps and see where they overlap. From there you can tweak as needed to meet your own needs.

4. Use the car/stroller during naptimes for the baby if you need to get out. I needed to get out of the house so my poor daughter endured this about 2-3 times a weeks so me and and my son could get some air.

5. Hire a sitter or mother's helper to come and sit while baby sleeps so you can go for a walk with your toddler or take him to an activity. 

Comments

[JessPond]

What about...

6. Frantically shower during naps that overlap and pray everyone continues to sleep and that they don't wake each other if they wake up.

and...

7. Frantically do housework and or eat.

Those two are the way my house runs! hahaha :)

[AmyS]

Unfortunately, I never got my boys to really nap at the same time. Kudos to those moms who are so lucky. There might have been 20 minutes where they were down at the same time. Just enough time to catch my breath, use the bathroom, eat something... It didn't give me much mommy time, but it did give my 18 month old the much needed alone time with mommy. Then he promptly gave up naps all together at 2...but that's a whole other post...