Experiment: No Nap

FAIL.

So over the past two weeks of no napping, The Man and I have noticed ... how shall I put this ... a slight decrease in positive behaviour on the part of our child. It began slowly enough, with a little defiance here and a few more tears there, but slowly it has dawned on us that our child has become a monster. Seriously, our previously happy, mostly cooperative child has turned into a child to whom the least little request is akin to torture. "It's time to get dressed." results in running away and shrieks of misery. "We're going to the store," is cause for all-out war with air-raid level wails and tears for ten or more minutes.

Slow parents that we are, we kind of maybe figured that perhaps this might not be a phase, but maybe, just maybe, he's not getting enough sleep. And we'd even noticed that our wonderful early bedtime weren't always early, either. Often our evenings were nasty, brutish and short, but more often they were becoming nasty, brutish, and long, which really wasn't serving anyone. I mean, at least the old way we had a cheerful kid for hours each night; having a grumpy kid for hours wasn't exactly what we had in mind for this change.

Slow parents that we are, we hadn't really gotten around to doing anything about it, either.

Until yesterday. Yesterday I arrived at the daycare and was taken aside by one of the caregivers. She seemed ... nervous. She told me that they'd had to nap my son yesterday. "It was like the other day," she explained, referring to the last time they'd napped him, "He just seemed to lose it, to really need the sleep." I assured her as how we didn't mind that they gave him a nap some days if he needed it. I then confessed that we had noticed some behavioural changes, and her entire face cleared and she said, rather quickly, "Oh, Good! I'm so glad you said that because we've noticed that here as well ...." and trailed off.

Translation: Your kid has been a major pain in the rear, lately, and we're going to strongly suggest that you reconsider your nap priorities for the sake of our sanity and the other children in the daycare. 

So we had a nap yesterday, and I had a regular bedtime last night. And a nap today too.

And we have our cheerful kid back again. 

I will miss those early evenings, though. Sigh.