Summertime Naptime and Bedtime

For most of Aria's early life I was obsessive about her sleeping habits.  For some reason I thought she always had to sleep in her bed.  I never wanted her to fall asleep elsewhere for fear that she may not learn how to sleep in her bed or that she wouldn't sleep when we got home from wherever we were.  Then, I was convinced she had to be on a specific sleeping schedule and sleep a certain specific amount every day for naps and at night.  Whew, it wears me out just thinking back on that.  I have relaxed quite a bit, but it certainly was a lot easier once she slept consistently and I wasn't so sleep deprived.  However, dropping a nap or changing a routine has never quite been smooth.  And here we are again.  When I wanted Aria to stop taking a morning nap and only nap in the afternoon, I'm pretty sure she would have rather taken a morning nap and not one in the afternoon.  It took awhile before I could get her used to not sleeping in the morning and not being a big crab.  Now we've reached not taking a nap at all and the transition is equally as not smooth.

Lately Aria has woken up as early as 5:30 am and been awake as late as 10:00 pm (not in the same day) with various amounts of nap in between.  On days she does not nap, she is generally pretty tired and ready for bed at 8.  If she does take a nap, she often doesn't go to sleep until after 9.  Or she wakes up really early.  And then there are random days like yesterday where she slept in until 8:00 am.  The good news is I am a lot less uptight about it.  We have rules in place about when she can come out of her room in the morning, how much time she must stay in her room for rest time, and getting out of bed at night.  If she doesn't sleep, she doesn't sleep and there isn't anything I can do about it.  What I do like is the flexibility to do something all day without worrying about how to get her a nap.  Or staying out late for things like fireworks and balloon glows.  It is so easy to stay up late with the extended light that is summer.  I enjoy being able to do things into the evening with her and I cannot even imagine a 7:00 pm bedtime like she used to have as an infant.

There isn't exactly a point to all this other than yet another sign of how my girl is growing up.  We are now flexible with sleep without much crabbiness.  It seems like we can do so many more fun things.  Summer has been great for helping us break out of those old patterns and charge ahead in really fun activities!  Yay for changing seasons!