I’m hopeful that we are making progress with Independent Play!

We didn’t do IP yesterday with church and then going to see family, but Saturday must have been the start of something good!

Little Bug cried for about 30 seconds and then went off to play. There was an occasional whine or “Mama” thrown in there as she played BUT much improved from last week!

I am going to give it a couple of days and then slowly start increasing the minutes on the timer. I would like for her to not cry at all before I start increasing the minutes, but I don’t have any clue when that will be.

We will just keep plugging along until we get to two 30 minute Independent Playtimes daily. Eventually, when Little Bug does drop the morning nap, I hope to have one 60 minute Independent Playtime in the morning some time after breakfast and before lunch.

Nap update:

Yesterday was Sunday so Little Bug skipped the morning nap to go to church and once again, I feel she just isn’t quite ready to drop that morning sleep. We got home from church, ate lunch and Little Bug laid down around 2. She only slept 1 hour 15 minutes. She went to bed at 8:15 (should have been earlier, but we didn’t get home in time for her to go to bed at 8) and it took her awhile to go to sleep. She wasn’t just laying in there talking and playing. She was crying and fussing on and off until she finally went to sleep around 9pm. She was overtired, I believe and had a hard time getting to sleep.

Honestly, I wish Little Bug was ready to move to one nap a day. It would open up our mornings so much. She will get there one day and I really don’t want to push her to do something I know she is not ready to do.

I will continue consistent naptimes of 10 and 2:30 this week and then look at what she did during every nap and make a decision from there about when and how many naps there will be.

If I had to guess what we will do I’d say it will be a “catnap” in the morning from 10:30-11:30ish and then afternoon nap of about 1.5 hours at 3ish, with bedtime at 8:30. Then when Little Bug starts not sleep consistently for one of those naps, we will move to one afternoon nap.

That’s my plan anyway. We will see what actually unfolds! :)

- Elaine