the holy grail: overlapping naps

If you are new to Baby Bunching, it may seem impossible right now, but there is a way to almost guarantee yourself an hour of quiet time during the day. Not to complicate matters here, but your ultimate goal should be some time to yourself with no kids begging for food or fun. We call this the Holy Grail of Baby Bunching. You will most certainly hear the angels in heaven singing their praises when you get that last child in for a nap, look at the clock and realize you could possibly have some time to enjoy your lunch, check some email, get some work done, fold that laundry or even just stare at the wall.

How you ask? The first and foremost thing to do is write down both kids’ schedules. (This does mean you'll have to wait until your little one is actually ON a schdedule.) This might seem a bit Type A, but one Baby Buncher recommended mapping out their schedules on paper and comparing them. By doing this we were able to adjust meals and some nap times to get things to overlap.

When can I do this? Usually once your youngest is on to two naps a day this plan works. This unfortunately comes sometime after the "nap trap" phase so you'll have to be patient if it's too early for this right now.

Let’s look at a sample kids’ nap schedule.
Older Son (2 years old):
Napped from 12-2 p.m.
Younger Son (8 months):
Napped from: 9-11 a.m. and 1:30-3:30 p.m. (or hopefully more)

With this current schedule, you’d never leave the house or get a few minutes to yourself.

There are a few suggestions here and much of it depends on 1) what time your children wake up and go to bed 2) their temperament when tired. The easiest way to start adjusting this schedule is with the toddler.

While many toddlers are ready for a nap at 11 a.m., it’s often possible to get them down a bit later with some training. Slowly push back the naptime by 15 minutes every few days with 12:30 for naptime being your ultimate goal. If your baby naps until 11 a.m. everyday, you get everyone out of the house for a walk or one quick outing for some stimulation. See if you can work over a couple of weeks to get your older one going down later. Then work to get your younger one going down for that afternoon nap a bit earlier. It might be a short morning nap (yes, we’re talking about waking them up) or it could be a few days a week of stroller/carseat naps. If you can shoot to have your baby go down for his nap at 1 p.m. that gives you a chance at an hour and a half of quiet time. 

If you follow Dr. Marc Weissbluth’s Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child regime of putting a baby down every two hours you can make the schedule work to fit your younger child. For example: my youngest would wake at 6:30 a.m. every morning (and still does). I would get her down for a nap at 8:30 a.m. and let her sleep until 10:30. Ready and waiting at the door with full diaper bag and car running, we'd hop in the car and go somewhere…anywhere! We would either have lunch out or race home for a quick bite and then nap (going down somewhere between 12:30 and 1:15).

Naptime order went depending on who was the most tired. Anna required 20-minutes of nursing before her nap so sometimes I would put her Alex down first and then deal with her baby or sometimes I'd let Alex play happily in his room, while I put her baby to bed. With both kids in bed for sure by 1:30, I could usually get almost two hours of time to myself. By 3:30 or 4 p.m. everyone was up and rested, including me.

Getting stuck in the "nap trap" can be difficult, but once your kids are all on a schedule that you can play with a bit, you've got a little wiggle room to help ensure most days you'll get a mini break.

Let us know if you have some 'tried and true' tips for getting your kids' naps to overlap.

Comments

[JessPond]

You so forgot "take a shower" in that list in the first paragraph.

:)

[Casey]

We call this "Baby Nirvana" in our house and it's a rare thing and is very appreciated.

[Jenny P]

Oh, I am almost there. The Grail is in sight. I had plodded along treating toddler's schedule (that I had worked so hard to achieve) as sacrosanct and trying to get baby to go along with the program. That got me a whole lotta nap-trap time. I'd spend nearly all of toddler's nap trying to get baby to sleep. By the time she went to sleep, I'd be emotionally drained and 20 minutes later, toddler would wake up.

Finally, I gave up on napping the same and resolved to just entertain whoever was awake. At that point, I discovered what baby's natural rhythm was. Then I had to confidence to start to fiddle with toddler's schedule.

It's funny that my morning now looks almost identical to yours except that we go for a long morning walk and baby's first nap happens in the stroller.

[Yvy @ mistymom]

my first time here and omg, i think i just found my baby/mummy bible!!! gotta thank one of ur readers, molly for talking abt this site on circle of moms on facebook!! just linked u up - thank you ladies!!!!

[Lois]

I had that holy grail working at my house, until my 3 year old quit napping. The 2 year old and the 9 month old overlap, but the 3 year old doesn't go away!!! :) He'll usually watch a movie and I at least get a little bit of quiet, but somedays, I can't get him to stop talking to me for 5 minutes.

[Emily]

I have three kids ages 4, 2 this week, and 4 months...I usually get a good 1 1/2 hour to 2 hours a day where their nap times overlap (or in the case of my 4 year old, his quiet time in his room). This is all thanks to the Healthy Sleep book...if you haven't read it, I strongly recommend it because not only do my children nap/sleep well, they are happy children during the day because of it. Sorry, I know I sound like a walking advertisement. But seriously the book is amazing...it is now my standard baby gift for all first time mommies!

[April]

i'm so lucky in this respect, insofar as i can often get my 2yo to take an early nap and overlap at least 20-30 minutes with the 10mo... the only problem with this, is we are limited in the late afternoon, because 2yo is WIPED from going so long without a nap... but it's better than the alternative!!!

[PollyBRAY21]

I will recommend not to hold back until you get enough cash to buy all you need! You can just take the business loans or consolidation loans and feel yourself free