In the past, whenever it's time for Caleb to take his afternoon nap, I'll need to carry him, walk around the house until he falls asleep, and then attempt to put him down on the bed. This required a lot of strength (to carry him round and round), patience (coz sometimes I need to carry him for like half an hour), and skills (he's an extremely light sleeper so I need to be very skillful in how I put him down so that he will not wake up).
So for the first one and a half years of his life, I put up with this sleeping habit of his, but as he got older and heavier (he's at least 10.5kg now!), I decided that we cannot go on like this anymore! Actually I think he pushed me to my limits and one day, after carrying him for quite a while, I gave up and told him that I'm tired too and I'm going to sleep as well. And with that, we started a new routine. When it's time for him to take his nap, I'll tell him that I'm tired too and we should all go take a nap. He protested initially and wanted me to carry him but I pretended that I was asleep and ignored him. And he would whine and complain for about 10 to 15min before drifting off to sleep. And after a while, he got used to the idea of me feeling tired during his nap time, he would also lie down in his cot and slowly go to sleep on his own. I was quite pleased with the arrangement coz he's always sleepy after lunch and would take abt 10-15min to drift off and then I get to eat my lunch and clear some housework. There were moments though that I did think that it'll be nice if he could go to sleep on his own but thought that would be quite unachievable without him putting up a strong protest.
Well, who would have thought, on Monday, after he finished lunch, I proceeded with my routine of washing up the dishes and after hanging around me for a while, he said...
Caleb: I don't like Mummy sleep.
Mummy: (I was feeling cheeky so I said..) "ok, Mummy don't sleep, Mummy eat lunch ok? You go and sleep.
Caleb: I don't like Mummy eat lunch.
Mummy: You ate your lunch already right? It's my turn to eat lunch. I'm hungry.
Caleb: ok
Wah, when I saw that he was agreeable, I quickly grabbed the chance and got him to lie on his cot and went out of the room to eat my lunch. I think he must be tired coz he went off to sleep after a couple of minutes. I was really happy and thought this arrangement is really good! So on Tuesday, after lunch, again he said he don't like me to go to sleep so I repeated by lines about being hungry and that he should go to sleep while I eat, which he did. On Wednesday, he changed his lines and after lunch, told me, "I don't like to take naps." So, I changed my lines too and told him "If you don't take your nap, you will not have energy to play right?" He accepted that and allowed me to put him in his cot. He didn't quite go to sleep immediately but he rolled around, talked to himself for like 20min until he drifted off to sleep.
I've been telling Daddy, I hope we can keep up with this arrangement! Well, today, after lunch, again he said "I don't like to take naps." and he said "I don't like Mummy eat lunch. I want to eat Mummy's lunch." So I told him "You ate so much for lunch and if you eat my lunch as well, you're going to get a tummy upset. And I'll be hungry coz I'll have nothing to eat." I went off to wash the dishes and realised that Caleb had disappeared from the kitchen. I went to check the bedroom and I couldn't believe it, he had gone off to the bedroom on his own and climbed into his own cot. He wasn't sleeping but was just lying there talking to himself and staring at some toys which he had carted off to bed. I was very brave and went into the room to switch on the fan for him. He grinned at me and I grinned back but quickly made myself scarce just in case he changed his mind. What he didn't know was that inside I was thinking "Wah! This is too good to be true!"
Haha, I really hope we can keep up with this arrangement. I'm working on putting him to sleep at night as well. He insists that either myself or Daddy should be in the room with him before he goes to bed and sometimes, he insists that we must all sleep with him. Well, hopefully we can work towards him going to bed on his own at night too.
