Quiet morning – playing the nap time game

Mornings used to be the time when I had a few hours to myself. My son is a morning napper. I think it comes from the fact that he is still not the best night-time sleeper and after his morning cup of hemp milk, a bit of breakfast and a bit of snuggles, he’s ready to “finish up his night” so to speak. It used to be that he would get up at 5 am, nap from 8 til 10, be up until 2 pm, nap from 2 to 4 and then be up and happy until his bedtime around   7 pm. I won’t lie, that was so perfect! But Little People become bigger people with less need for naps and lately, his afternoon naps have been getting shorter and shorter, while his morning naps have been getting earlier and longer. While this has been happening, he’s been fighting going to sleep at night and getting up several times a night. So right now he’s only getting an average of 8 hours of interrupted sleep a night. Time for a change.

We’ve started timing his morning nap to slowly get him to a more restful mid day nap. It’s been working so far. He’s been waking less during the night. But my goodness, days have been a roller coaster! So I decided to just give him a bit of a break this morning.

Maybe it was the nice backyard walk we had coming home from dropping off big sister. Maybe it’s the gentle snow fluttering down on the breeze. It could be the little extra bit of coffee I made myself this morning or the fact that my arm feels good so knitting won’t be too painful. I’m sure it has a little bit to do with the fact that both our Baker Creek Whole Seed 2015 catalog and our winter issue of Heirloom gardener magazine came in the mail at the same time yesterday. LOL! … all I know is I feel like a quiet morning so he can sleep for as long as he wants. Mama won’t bother him.

Great little dish cloth pattern from Apple Shoe here

On a little personal note, I think Little Man and I share a bit of the same eye when it comes to our “nature walks”… I had been looking at these beautiful pieces of birch bark that were peeking out among the leaves in our yard for a few days. I always have my hands full when we are out there and paper birch bark being so delicate, I didn’t want to risk crushing them. I was thinking in my head “Oh the possibilities… I should come back and look around the yard and pick up all the pieces for crafts”. This morning, without me saying a word out loud, he headed straight for one, picked it up and brought it back to me. My little mind reader. With all the searching for ways to more deeply connect to my son lately, this was definitely a beautiful mama-Little-Man moment. He is also fascinated with pine brooms. I think we definitely have another “treasure hunter” on our hands!

 

Wishing you the most beautiful day…