Napping Is for Singletons

Nap Time has become Crib Play Time. This is not an approved change in schedule. It's still being debated between parent and children. Unfortunately there's three of them and only one parent (home at nap time), so I'm not putting my money on the authority figure.

What do they do instead of napping? They sing; they dance; they jump; they do acrobatic feats to get from one crib to another. Seriously. On Tuesday I went in to check on the kidlets two hours into their nap and what did I discover?! Three slumbering toddlers?! No. Two slumbering toddlers and one dissident? No. One (good) slumbering toddler and two pranksters? No. All three were bouncing around and chatting it up in the best of spirits.

Sure that worked fine at nap time, but you wouldn't have wanted to be here an hour before bedtime...or two hours after bedtime. They were cranky, cranky, cranky. Naps are important and toddlers should not be allowed to cut them out just because they'd rather hop from one crib to the next to discuss the weather. The twins just don't have enough words in their vocabulary to have been discussing serious topics like the presidential inauguration...unless they were doing that twin language thing?! I wonder what their take is on all the hoopla surrounding President Obama's taking of office?

They probably couldn't care less. More likely they were discussing their morning play date with the McSharry twins. I myself was a member of a twin foursome for a few years. It's quite nice to find others you can discuss twin issues with. Maybe the McSharry twins suggested to Jake and Viva that they cut out nap time and play instead?

Okay to be perfectly honest, it was probably Bentley who was behind the scheme. He's older and less interested in napping. I've noticed lately that he and Viva will have long discussions before they nap while Jake usually drifts off early in the confab. One day when I interrupted play time (aka nap time), I found Bentley out of his crib and both twins standing up in theirs. I asked why Jake was awake (he had been sleeping earlier when I checked on them) and Bentley informed me that he had woken Jake up. Gee, thanks Bentley.

At least Jake had napped for a while and after my visit to them, Viva and Bentley and Jake all went to sleep for a while. Tuesday I think no resting was done at all by any one of the three--the noise level in their bedroom wasn't consistent with napping. When I checked on them two hours into their nap, Jake and Viva were in the same crib.

NOT GOOD! I called Kara into the room to witness this new development. I put Jake back in his crib and he promptly demonstrated to us how he got into Viva's crib. The end of Viva's crib is right next to the side of Jake's crib. Viva's crib end is much higher than the side of Jake's crib, so he grabbed onto the taller crib end and used it to pull himself up to a standing position on the rail of his crib. From there it is an easy flip (yes a flip!) into Viva's crib. Fortunately Viva was at the other end of the crib or she would have been crying after being body slammed by her twin.

So what's the game plan mom? How are you going to bring order to this new reign of chaos?

Update: Mom's game plan was to close her eyes and wish the problem away. I tried a more pro-active approach. I put more distance between Jake and Viva's cribs. Jake was ticked off, but it kept him from using her crib for leverage. Bentley wanted me to put Viva's crib closer to his so he could pull a Jake, but I did not oblige him. I pushed his crib towards the closet to make room for pushing Viva's crib away from Jake's crib.

Bentley can get out of his crib without help, so there's no way of stopping him other than threats. I resorted to such this afternoon after he informed me he'd just wait until I closed the door to climb out of his crib and join Viva in hers. I told him he better not. He then asked about climbing into Jake's crib. There's nothing like a two year old looking for loopholes--he makes me laugh when I should be stern and serious.


This is a before bed, not a nap time, photo of the trio, but you can see how they might be trouble. Major trouble.