Goodbye morning nap, I'll miss you!

John and I have been going back and forth for the last month about whether or not we should drop Anabelle's morning nap. It has been a busy month with travel and visitors and some illness thrown in for good measure. Every time we thought we would try, it just wasn't the right time. Last week she seemed like she might finally be ready, so this week we started. Her new schedule is:

wake up around 7:30

eat breakfast get dressed and play

get out of the house and do something fun!

12:00 home for lunch

12:30 nap

hopefully sleep till 3:30

eat a snack

play, go outside, or run errands

5:00 home to cook dinner (this is the hardest part of our day, Anabelle is tired and clings to my legs while I attempt to cook dinner and entertain her. Usually she only wants to be held and that's hard to do while cooking)

6:10 Daddy's home -Yay!!!

6:30 Dinner

7:00 bath or playtime

7:30 bed

So here is a picture from the 1st day. She had a bit of a hard time in the morning around 9:30 and was attempting to sleep everywhere, but standing up- wouldn't lay down . It was like she just wouldn't give up, but tried to lean on everything. Here she is leaning on the couch in her classic "I'm tired" pose.

Overall the new nap routine is going well, Anabelle seems to be adapting well. It does make the day longer for both of us, by bedtime I am exhausted too. On the upside we can now do more socializing. Most toddler activities (storytime, playdates, etc.) take place around 9 or 10 o'clock and so we would often miss them because of morning nap. Yesterday we were able to go to the library to see a puppet show. Anabelle did pretty well sitting through about 20 minutes before letting me know she was ready to go by getting chatty.

Later in the day we went outside to get some fresh air. It had snowed about 2 inches during nap time and since the temps were a little warmer (about 28) than they had been earlier in the week we thought we better get out and enjoy it.

Trying to eat the snow

Anabelle is getting better at walking around in full snow gear, but she still falls a lot and it is pretty frustrating for her.

As you can see in the video, she is getting better at communicating her wants and needs. Lately she shakes her head "no" at everything, even though sometimes I don't think she quite understands that she is saying no.