I’ll be the odd one out. My 3.5 and 4.5 year old both still nap like champs. The 3.5 year old never skips a nap unless forced (like today) and the 4.5 year old still naps most days and does quiet time in her room the few days per month when she doesn’t nap.
They are holy terrors on the days they don’t get naps (crying over every single little thing) so their bodies definitely still need them
LB would not nap for me past maybe 3 and 1/2, but he definitely napped at his full day. Pre-K until his fifth birthday. I am pretty sure that almost all of the kids at full day Pre-K were sleeping, because BB did not and that seemed like an exception.
Dropped naps at home around 3, napped at daycare for another 3-4 months after that. But - it was taking him 45 minutes to fall asleep at daycare, and he started dreading going for the sole reason that he didn’t want to nap. Daycare transitioned him to quiet time after that based on our request.
There was a good 6 month period where he was a huge crank between 5-6 pm because he still needed the nap but would not take one. We never got the knack of quiet time. He finds it the worst thing in the world to have to play by himself and would constantly ask for things, whine, or throw tantrums. He would literally hang out by the door whining at us for an hour so we eventually gave up.
Oh yeah that’s a good point. We started having an issue where she wouldn’t fall sleep until 10 min before we needed to get her up. That was a total pain.
Yeah. I could do quiet time until almost age 3 by doing it together. So just cozy bedroom play
J1 - they stopped napping the day their brother was born, at about 2 years and 9 months. I enforced a daily ‘quiet time’ hour for the next year.
J2 - at 4 years old J2 went to Junior Kindergarten. He napped every single day until then. Some days till 4, and then would be back asleep by 8. That child would still nap daily at 13 if he could. I have a whole series of photos of him titled, “he’s not sleepy,” sleeping in weird places. At one cub camp, my friend said the cabin was wild, Cubs everywhere, and J2, sound asleep in his bunk with chaos happening around him
The topic came up in a journal but I wanted to start a larger conversation here - kids activities. What are you going to require? How many? How will the after school/dinner logistics be handled?
We had Kiddo in taekwondo twice a week for thirty minutes, when I was working we tried to alternate which parent took him. The parent that was not taking him was responsible for dinner.
Now that I’m not working I do all the chauffeuring to practice but Mr. Meer comes to the graduation events (every ten weeks). I also got Kiddo into a weekly kids D&D group which he enjoys and learns socializing from and teamwork and all that. Over the summer we’re dropping taekwondo and will probably do swim lessons (not sure exactly when yet) and in the fall make him do taekwondo or another sport.
When I was a kid I did Girl Scouts, then nothing for a while, then ballet. I hear about other families that do two or three activities and have multiple kids and I cannot comprehend. Are you that family? Dogs you grow up in that family? Tell me all about it.
We have not required extracurriculars. BB only did flag football this year, a few library events and then a robotics team that ran for a few weeks. LB tried judo and now is doing Little League, which is a huge commitment (2-3 nights a week plus Saturdays, 20-35 minutes away, games that are at least a 2 hour time commitment), but at least it’s only for a couple of months. It really just sort of eats May! I haven’t seen any friends all month. No bandwidth for planning.
Little League is a whole-family commitment. I have taken PTO for a couple hours here and there and the Boy has rearranged his work schedule, because the games are not toddler-friendly. He goes to more games than I do because he likes night driving and I don’t, but I do some as well, partly to spend time with LB and partly to not always be “baby captain.”
We have a parent at home every day but it still gets dicey with the little one on hand. We serve simpler meals that reheat well on game days- like chili or quesadillas (made in 2 batches, one for the stay-home family and then a late batch).
Next year I’m hoping LB will choose activities through his school- his new school will get him home even later (probably not until 5) and it just won’t be practical. A lot of places don’t seem to have gotten the memo that a lot of middle schools don’t dismiss until 4:25 now.
BB prefers extracurriculars that he can get to on his own power. When he did flag football, his daily round trip bike ride from home to school to football to home again was 7.5 miles!
We did so much as kids (total of three in my fam) but we also had a SAHM and were in a suburb where a lot of things were walkable (at least the school stuff was).
I feel like my mom was a glorified chauffeur for a few years. Otherwise…HOW
Omg I forgot my sister did swimming for a minute. But that was a before school situation, and she could walk
We’re not sportsy, and I don’t drive, so we did activities we could walk to or at times dh could drive them. One kid signed up for everything. One kid didn’t want to do anything.
My sister and I did Girl Scouts and dance together as kids. She did more dance classes than I did, but I didn’t have competing activities so I would just go with and do homework or read while waiting with my mom. In middle school, we did before-school choir and orchestra—actually, she wasn’t in the orchestra, but I only joined choir because I had to be at school early with her anyway. I don’t think we did separate activities until at least middle school, and then either they were at the school, or on weekends so our parents were both available.
We will not push the wiggler into activities. In kindergarten, he’s usually pretty wiped by the time he gets home from school, so I don’t foresee him being too eager.
The little boy takes piano lessons and swimming lessons (but in the summer they just go to the pool.) he did little kid soccer one session and last summer he did flag football.
He would like to do soccer again and Lego league and other stuff, and I’ve tried to make it clear that we are happy to take him to anything he wants to do - his mom has enough on her plate already.
We don’t require activities, we more have to limit the number going on at any given time. Nemo (12) does 1) swim (year round), 2) soccer (spring/fall), 3) scouts, 4) viola, 5) yearbook, 6) lego league (robotics), 7) DND club, 8) garden club, 9) church/youth group.
4-8 happen exclusively at or after school and were mostly spread out at various times of the year, and he definitely does not practice viola much independently. Swim and soccer are on different nights, and soccer is “just” rec league, not club. It’s… a lot… but we only have one. We know other families with 3 who all do close to this much and I have no idea how on earth they handle it.
omg that was my childhood too, except nothing was walkable, lol. There were three of us and we all had multiple activities. Our school didn’t offer much, so everything was organized outside of it, and my working parents–but let’s be real, mostly my mom–were shuttling us to things just about constantly. And we were shuttled to each other’s stuff too until we were old enough to stay home by ourselves. On the one hand I’m grateful for having gotten to try so many things. But do I want that for myself as a parent? hell no
For my kid I don’t want to “push” her into anything just for the sake of it. If she’s got an interest, AND it’s feasible for the family, we’ll go for it. I’m also hoping to send her to a school that has some of these activities embedded in it so it’s not all on me.
Right there with you.
My mom tried to get me into stuff as a kid and I was so shy and anxious I refused all of them, well past the age of it being reasonable. I kind of wish an adult had tried again when I was older, because it may have gone better (especially with some conversation about what I could expect before it became routine), but by then there were much younger siblings and various family crises that had to come first.
I want to get Larva into everything, partially because I regret getting into nothing and partially because she is very extroverted and wants lots of adventures. I have to be mindful of not doing too much at once just because it’s all there, and also doing too much of one thing too soon.
At 1 we did a swim class (too cold), at 2 started gymnastics, at 3 paused gymnastics for a couple of months to do skating, then back to gymnastics. This summer at 4 we have a lot of options—trying swim class again, and there’s T-ball she might enjoy this year. Plus possibly preschool camp which we didn’t do last year because I was already paying for daycare. Then still gymnastics, which goes all summer? Who knows. I think I’ll go for trying out some new things and do a maximum of two things per week.
This is an interesting discussion! We made a decision quite a while ago for each kid to only do 1 sport at a time. Eldest started gymnastics when she was 1.5. Then COVID happened so we stopped for a while then went back. This fall gymnastics sign up filled up before I could get signed up so we did dance.
This summer both eldest and little one are doing gymnastics. For the summer the youngest will get picked up from daycare a little early and eldest will stay at her daycare a little later during gymnastics and supper will be after. For eldest she will go to gymnastics after supper.
It all feels like a lot even limiting to one sport. We were going to do girl scouts for the eldest but it never got off the ground so that didn’t happen. Usually on practice nights we have leftovers because we just don’t have time for something more complicated.
I’m doing baby gym classes and baby music classes with Mo because if I don’t do something several times a week I will get bored and lose my mind. Also baby time at the library if it works out with her naps. But also she doesn’t go to daycare so I don’t think it’s too much while I’m otherwise basically at home with her.