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Now that our twins are 3 years old, we have come to a point in their lives that I dreaded very, very, very, very, very much. They have reached the age where most days they do. not. nap. Cue the mommy tears.
We tried and tried and tried to get them to continue napping. Some days they still would like to take one, but I don’t let them. That sounds horrible, but the problem we have when they nap is their little brains won’t shut off until almost 11 pm! We tried napping earlier but they still couldn’t fall asleep at night and this mommy needed some quiet time in the evenings, and my boys needed a good night’s sleep, so naps went out the window.
Since we all seem to do better when we have some peace in the afternoon, we have been working on implementing a Quiet Time. I’m not super picky about what the boys do, but we do have a few rules.
1. They must stay in their room unless they need to use the toilet.
2. No electronics.
3. They must be as quiet as can be expected from 3 year olds and try not to fight with each other or their afternoon TV time will be taken away. I use TV time and fruit snacks as their reward for a good quiet time, and they are starting to understand that those things will get taken away if they pick on each other or don’t play quietly in their room.
Yesterday was a magical Quiet Time, and although it totally messed up bedtime, I was not even mad. One of my twins laid down in his bed, covered himself with a blanket, and took a nap with absolutely no prompting from me. His brother quietly played at the head of his bed while he napped. (How sweet is it that they had to be close to each other even while one was sleeping?!)
As I’ve been deal searching I’ve been gathering things for the boys to play with that they can get out during Quiet Time. They really enjoy playing with these specific toys, and I appreciate that they can’t make much of a mess with them! Our favorite options so far have been…
I don’t have a specific Doodle Board on Amazon to recommend, because we got ours at Dollar Tree! And I love the chalkboard/whiteboard but when they’re alone in their room I take away the markers & chalk and just let them play with the magnets. They also have a basket of books in their room that they can look at and I turn soft music on their CD player to hopefully calm the mood. Most of these also work great for in the car when we’re traveling!
I feel like this mom thing is mostly trial and error, but so far this is what’s working for us for Quiet Time. Have you had to phase naps out for a little one?! Did it go well for you? I’d love to hear what you’ve learned!
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I think your ideas are great. My kids did quiet time. My wonderful sister in law clued me in on this cool idea! One thing I did was I always included music. When Drew was little it was the FP record player that played actual 45 records. With Amy a cassette player & with Katelyn I used a CD player. They also had rules of staying in their room. Nothing loud. Lots of books, dolls, legos, Lincoln logs… etc. It lasted for two glorious hours. I think quiet time is a must! It takes time to establish but so very important! I remember once cleaning up from lunch & it was TOO quiet. I ran to look for them & they were in their rooms. I asked, “what are you doing??” And they answered, “we are doing quiet time!” They need it, too!