I don’t know about anyone else but things at my house have been pretty crazy. Both of my girls (Peanut will be 4 in September and Mushy turned 2 in April) don’t take naps anymore. I have been noticing some aggression, moodiness and down-right grumpiness from them lately. I chatted with my sister-in-law about this and she mentioned that it might be because they are not getting enough sleep.
So, I looked at the sleep requirements on the National Sleep Foundations website and sure enough they were not getting the amount of sleep that they say the girls need at their ages.
According to them 1-3 year olds need 12-14 hours of sleep in a 24 hours period and 3-5 year olds need 11-13 hours (information can be found at http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/children-and-sleep). My kids come no where near that amount! On a good day they will both go to sleep around 9pm and get up around 7:30-8am. Whenever my little Mushy gets a nap in (no matter how long or short the nap is) she ends up staying up longer. A good example: Yesterday she actually fell asleep on the couch and took an hour nap. Then when it came time for bed she didn’t fall asleep until almost 10:30pm which is 1.5 hours after we put them to bed. Even though she went to bed that much later, she still got up at her normal time.
So, with this kind of thing happening how do you get her to sleep longer so that her attitude isn’t horrendous anymore? Right now I am working on “quiet time” after lunch. When they are done eating they get cleaned up and then head upstairs to their room. I then put the gate up and explain to them that it is “quiet time” and they should lay down and relax while reading a book or playing with their lace-up cards. Of course I hope that they take a nap but that never happens. Instead they usually just end up fighting and bickering… the usual “sisters that share a room” stuff I guess.
The only good thing that comes out of that one hour of “quiet time” is that I get to “recharge”, make phone calls if I have to, do laundry, empty the dishwasher… you know get all of the wifey stuff done.
Do you have any advise on how to solve this kind of problem? Are you dealing with this kind of stuff? I like to hope that I am not the only one that has to deal with this kind of thing. If I figure any of this stuff out I will be sure to share the info with you!
Crafting Mommy of Three 
The Clone (7) is an early riser, I mean HIDEOUSLY early, I have drawn the line at 7am because at one point it was 5.30am. No matter what time she goes to bed (we have 8pm now) she will wake stupid early, so OK 7 is not bad but then after a week of seven she will start asking to get up at 6.30, so still not too bad. After a week of 6.30 it will be 6, still a human hour. A week later 5.30, you see the pattern here. We tried later bedtimes and got tantrums. We have tried black out curtains, she opens them. The clock get’s ignored so now she goes to bed with a colouring book and pens in the hope that she will let Geek Girl (4) sleep a bit longer. Geek Girl goes to bed at 7.30 and still has a nap because of The Clone’s morning antics.
Both of them have tantrums, meltdowns, and hissy fits. I feel mostly it’s a “pah, kids” thing rather than a sleep thing, I have seen neighbours kids having the same tantrums, so at least it’s not me
Yeah, I have thought that their tantrums are just because of the ages that they are… you know the normal “terrible 2’s & 3’s” stuff. And, I do really hope it is just that so they will grow out of it eventually. When I tell people about my kids sleep schedule I do get weird looks sometimes because of how late we put them to bed. But it just works with our family right now. Neither of them are in school yet and their dad get’s home from work between 6:30 and 7:30 so I don’t want them to miss spending some time with him. When they get into school I will of course change their bed times.
I have talked to another friend that told me about how she started giving her 4 year old a nap time again and how it has improved the way that he acts during the day. Her pediatrician had actually suggested it because he said that her son wasn’t getting the amount of sleep that he was supposed to.
So, I am a little torn by all of this information because it just doesn’t seem to work with my kids. Peanut does have her 4 y ear check up in September so I do plan on talking to their Pediatrician about it. I’ll be sure to update you if I find the magic solution! hehehe