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Our Transition from Nap Time to Quiet Rest Time

This summer marks the first summer that Harrison is no longer napping. He’s 5 and will start kindergarten in August. I noticed that while his nap during the day was great, it started taking him so much longer at night to fall asleep. When it took him an hour one night to fall asleep, I decided that we needed to ditch the nap. I had tried ditching it last summer (or rather napping some days and not napping other days), but that lasted maybe one day because I realized he still needed a nap last summer.

I know that nap time is highly valuable to a mother. It’s probably the only time during the day that we get to pick up the house, do dishes, get caught up on laundry, make important phone calls, or even work out. Something that I heard before I became a mother was the term “quiet rest time.” I remember listening to a Sally Clarkson podcast while working out one day and she talked about her children having a quiet rest time each day. I held onto that idea for when it was time to employ that in our home.

Quiet rest time for Harrison happens after lunch when Banks goes down for his nap. We have a few rules for quiet rest time:

-he has to stay upstairs in the playroom or tv room until I tell him his quiet rest time is over

-he may watch tv if he hasn’t watched a lot of tv already that day

-if he does get to watch tv, it has to be on his Disney+ watchlist and I have to turn on the tv for him (this is the only time he watches tv unsupervised which is why he’s only allowed to watch what’s on the approved watchlist that I put on for him)

-he has to clean up the playroom before he comes downstairs when quiet rest time is over

I think having quiet rest time is wonderful for when kids are out of the nap stage. It teaches them to entertain themselves and to be self-reliant. And when Harrison is able to read, he’ll also be required to read before he can play 🙂 Quiet rest time will still remain a solo time during the day when Banks and even Merritt are old enough to ditch the nap. Everyone gets a break in the middle of the day-even Mom 🙂

This is not something that I grew up doing, but it’s something that we will always do in our home!

Let’s Look: Our Summer Schedules!

Today I’m linking up with Shay in her monthly Let’s Look link up! When I saw that today’s topic was summer schedules, I knew I had to participate because I LOVE a schedule! I thrive in a schedule and so do my children.

Since I’m out of school for the summer, I get to set the schedule. The school year is hard for me because I have to adjust to a schedule set for me. For example, Banks was taking two naps a day when he started his new class in August. The class he was placed in only does one nap a day. That was so hard for him to adjust to (and also me since he was usually in a horrible mood on days he went to school), so now that we’re home for the summer, I see that he still needs a small mid-morning nap most days and now he gets to have one!

Having three small children right now is a little chaotic, but I wanted to share what our typical day looks like when Dustin is working and we don’t have anywhere to be during nap times. Our schedule revolves around Merritt’s right now.

7:00 am-wake Merritt to feed her a bottle (99% of the time the boys are already up by this time)

**play time, breakfast time, Banks goes down for a short nap shortly before Merritt’s next bottle

8:30-10:00 am- Merritt takes her first nap

10:00 am-Merritt’s second bottle of the day

10:45 am-wake Banks

11:30 am-put Merritt down for her next nap and start making everyone’s lunch

12:00 pm-boys are eating lunch

**after lunch Banks goes down for his big nap and Harrison goes upstairs for his quiet rest time. I’ll blog about this next week!

1:00 pm-Merritt’s third bottle of the day

**after I feed her, I’ll put her in this seat and I’ll try to either work on laundry, dishes, picking up around the house, or I may even sit down and eat my own lunch at this point while trying to read a little

2:30 pm- Harrison comes downstairs and I rock Merritt to sleep

**Harrison gets ready to go play outside. (We like to play outside all the time, but afternoons haven’t been scorching hot here lately so we’re really outside playing after nap time in order to exhaust everyone before bed haha)

3ish- Banks is up and I’m getting him ready to go outside and then I go outside with the boys

4:00 pm-Merritt’s fourth bottle of the day. (If it’s not too hot, I’ll feed her out back with the fan on and then we will stay outside until 5)

5:00 pm-go inside to start supper. Both Merritt and Banks have to come inside with me, but sometimes Harrison will opt to stay in our backyard playing

6:05 pm- Dustin is home and we eat! (This is later than I want to start eating, but we wait on Dustin to get home so we can eat as a family)

**After supper, we clean up the table, do bath time, read, and get the boys in bed–the goal is to get them in bed before 7:30 pm

7:00 pm-Merritt’s last bottle of the day. Then she’s swaddled and rocked to sleep. She usually goes to sleep pretty quickly but sometimes it takes a while to rock her.

Like I said, this is what our days look like when we stay at home all day–which is maybe half the time. Lately we’ve had swim lessons for Harrison at 10am. Sometimes we do a grocery pick up, run by the library, have a playdate with friends, visit family, or have appointments.

I know next summer will look totally different and won’t revolve around Merritt’s schedule like it does this summer, but these newborn days are fleeting and I’m soaking them all in 🙂

A Little Life Lately…

Happy Summer, friends! While I know it’s not technically the first day of summer, there’s something about Memorial Day that feels like the start to summer. We’ve had a busy past month so I want to update y’all before kicking off the summer blogging season LOL!

Harrison wrapped up his first baseball season this month. We skipped signing him up for t-ball and this year put him in 6U baseball. He had a great time and Dustin probably had an even better time as the “Dugout Dad” ha! Harrison’s season went from the end of February to the end of May. I started his season waddling up to all the practices and ended it pushing two babies in my double stroller :).

I went back to work on May 13 and I really struggled with even going back to work in the first place because the week before, Merritt developed pneumonia and it was so scary. I hated having to leave her each day (even though she was in the best care with either my mom or Dustin). Then she caught rhinovirus on top of having pneumonia so it was reaaaaaally rough at home. Thankfully she’s doing so much better!

I celebrated Mother’s Day this year with my hands full and my heart grateful! I made a reel to celebrate my feelings for the day. I know I didn’t do a great job on Mother’s Day acknowledging the hurt some women feel on that day–I know, because I was there six years ago. So I want to acknowledge that now and encourage those of you who feel sadness on Mother’s Day (or any holiday) to remember that true joy only comes from Christ and our hope in Him. I’m on the other side now and I can affirm that it’s true–my joy is not in my children. I love them so much but they also let me down. They are human just like I am–none of us are perfect–only Christ.

Harrison also graduated from his preschool program that he’d been going to since he was 5 months old! He’s had a great 5 years there and it’s hard to believe he’s going to kindergarten in August!

He also looks like a little teenager here–I feel like I’m looking at his senior pictures!

Banks has been so sweet toward Merritt. It’s really surprised me how great of a big brother he is. If he hears her cry, he starts to yell, “Me Me!” He wants to help me burp her. He wants to try to shove her Paci (or even his) in her mouth. He just turned 14 months old when Merritt was born, so it really is like taking care of two babies–two in diapers, two in cribs. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how gentle he is with her and how much he loves her!

And now we’re all home for summer break! I am looking forward to getting on a better schedule/routine (my type 1 enneagram self really thrives in one). 🙂