Last week I had perhaps the biggest scare yet when it comes to E: he refused to nap for five days in a row! J stopped napping before he turned two, but it was a more natural process. His naps decreased in length until they stopped altogether. E, on the other hand, was sleeping for two hours or more, every afternoon, when all of a sudden he stopped.
I panicked. Not because I don't know what to do with a toddler for an entire day, but because two hours to nothing seems a bit ridiculous. And it was. E was refusing to sleep, staying awake and locked in a full upright position until he convinced me to bring him back downstairs. It started with some crying, "Mommy, MOOOOOMMMMMMMYYYYYYY!" While this was difficult, it's also not out of the ordinary on occasion, so I let him go for it. But instead of drifting off after a minute or two, he started singing. "Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, SONG SONG SONG ME! Follow YOOOUUUU!" I have to admit, that was funny. But then he started yelling at me from his crib, ordering me to follow the Tambourine Man too, and when that failed, he began jumping on his mattress and flinging toys out of his crib. "Uh oh elephant, uh oh Starfish, uh oh Higgle Piggle and Macka Packa, uh oh Nana Bear, UH OH MR. JONES!"
This was what got me. Mr. Jones is sacred. He is the bear I got from my Grade One teacher when I was six, and have kept and passed along to E. He's just as attached to him as I was and there's no way that child is sleeping while Mr. Jones lies cold and lonely on the floor. So I had to go up and rescue the bear, which is when E would pull his "cute" face and tell me he was all done his nap. When I told him no, he became argumentative and summoned his ATTITUDE. I will tell you my two-year old has the attitude of a teenager. He is just as self-righteous, bossy, demanding and disagreeable as the most professional 15-year old. He ordered me to take him downstairs "RIGHT NOW!" and stop the madness of naptime.
Although there was more, I'm sure you get the point. For an hour I listened to E cry, scream, sing, laugh and manhandle his stuffed friends. There was one day when he slept for five minutes in the middle of all this, but aside from that, he woke at 6 and went to bed at 7, with zero sleep in between.
Before you think I'm a parent who needs their kids to have a nap so I get my free time, I'll tell you that's only half the case. Yes, I enjoy sitting down to actually enjoy a coffee without my little one begging me for just one more latte (that's a Tbsp. of brewed coffee with a cup of coconut milk, and he's nuts over it), but it's more about the fact that he clearly needs his daytime sleep still.\
If you think the resistance to naps was challenging, let me tell you about what happened after. My miniature teenager was so tired he could barely stand up. He couldn't walk in a straight line, and after four steps in a crooked line he would fall over. This paired with the "no no no" to everything and the fact that I had to hold him for 90% of the rest of the day, clearly showed me that he just cannot wean himself off of naps right now.
And that's why I panicked. Five days of a clingy, disagreeable, bossy, demanding, impossible-to-please toddler and I nearly reached my limit. I think I would have cried if there had been a day six. But thankfully, on day six he went back to his regular two-hour nap without a fuss, and things have improved a bit from there. At least I know he's not a danger to himself for half of the day and I can sometimes get him to listen to me. Yes, he's still two so that argumentative side is going to be here for a while. But it's nothing I can't handle with a jumbo coffee under my belt.
I know the day will come when he goes morning to night without a sleep in between. I'm not dreading that day though. It just means we will get to go out more, without having to worry about being home for the nap time window. It also means we can stay home and play here if we feel like it. But he's got to be ready. He tried to convince me last week that he was, but I'm not buying it.
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