Schedule Shifting

Pierce has a crazy schedule. It is one he set himself, not one I put him on. He wakes up anywhere from 6:00am to 7:00am (usually closer to 6, though) goes down for his nap at 10am (yes, 10!) wakes up at 1:00 (although lately it's been closer to 12, but he really does need 3 hours) & goes to bed sometime between 7:30 & 8:00.

I don't know why he has such an early nap, especially since he gets tired in the late afternoon. Not tired enough to nap, mind you, but tired enough to act out, not listen & hit me. Good times.

I have wanted to shift his schedule for so long, but every time I tried, my house would end up Cranky Central not only before he went down, but even after he woke up. Call me selfish, but crankiness all day is something that I would really like to avoid.

Although lately, as I mentioned above, he has been napping for only 2 hours. Yesterday he slept until 7:30 & it was glorious, but he was still ready for his nap by 10:30 (I was going to try to stretch him to 11:00 but that wasn't happening) & he woke at 12:30 so the day's schedule followed as usual.

But today he woke up at 8:45 (and believe me, it was even more glorious than yesterday morning, I kept waking up, seeing that the sun was coming through our window & thinking to myself "No, no, he'll be awake any minute now. Close your eyes & go back to sleep, quick!") so I decided to make the best out of the situation. I bribed my husband with sex asked my husband if he would like to accompany us to Ikea & he eagerly agreed. Ikea is at least a 30 minute drive & usually takes a whole day to walk through, but we took the shortcuts to the places that we were interested in which was mainly the Children's Ikea. I was pretty sure we would have Epic Toddler Meltdown at the store, but Pierce was very well behaved & happy to spend the entire time in his stroller. After a little shopping and a quick lunch, we headed home. I brought the pacifier (yes my 22 month old still uses the paci for sleep time GASP!) with us just in case he wanted to fall asleep in the car & when he got fussy we gave it to him, but he never fell asleep. When we got home it was 1:00 - normal toddler nap time - and we put him down for a nap. He slept is 4 hours & when he got up we played, had dinner & took him to the park. We left the park at 7:30 & headed to Michael's to purchase some cardstock for his birthday invitations & banner. I was pretty sure we were going to have a tantrum in the store because he a) doesn't like sitting in carts & b) was used to going to bed at this hour. But we got through the shopping trip with no tantrum!! I was impressed. We came home, gave him a bath & put him in his crib by 9:00.

I am VERY happy with how the day turned out today. This is truly the schedule I'd like to be on. I hope we are able to maintain it, because so many toddler programs happen during the morning when most toddlers are awake.