I'm not a big scheduled person. I mean, I do all right with a routine, but if I don't have a schedule I don't feel bereft.
Little Man is scheduling king. As a family, we all do better when we respect HIS limits and follow the schedule as he dictates. Breakfast three times a day (along with two lunches and a dinner), naps, and bedtime before 7 PM.
I find that I debate forcing him back on schedule with some flexibility. For example, yesterday around 5 he started to wind down and he could have used an extra nap. But I was worried that if he had slept then he wouldn't eat and would end up having to be woken up for dinner. Then he'd be unable to get back to sleep and it would be ugly. So I kept him awake, fed him and put him to bed early early.
It makes life limited in some ways (though we did go see a hockey game, courtesy of a babysitter who wanted to play with the boy but the boy was asleep), but those are limits that are totally ok.
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- badmommy
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2 comments:
We're still in that debating period.
If one of the kids skips regular nap time but falls asleep in the car on the way back from preschool pick up, we have the whole argument of What To Do--if we let them sleep, we could end up with a later than we like bedtime.
This is four years in but I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel. Owen is already at a point where he can handle bigger interruptions in his normal schedule and can get back on track fairly easily. Liv, a little less so.
Of course, all of this dithering is done to avoid Cranky Kid Syndrome.
Cranky kid syndrome is certainly the worst!
I keep waiting for little bits of self-regulation to increase so that mommy-regulation can decrease. I have years to go.
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