No Nap Dalton

For the last two or three weeks, Dalton has gone to 90% no nap. It's been a long time since he has napped reliably at home, however, he used to get a regular nap at school. He minimally has to lie quietly for 45 minutes there and he's decided that the minimum is his best available option.

The new schedule has some benefits. He generally goes to bed sometime between 7 and 8 pm. This allows Cathy and I some adult time to play computer games or board games or maybe even very occasionally to clean the house.

One less optimal effect of a paucity of nap is that he starts getting crazy around 6 pm. Sometimes it is aggressive crazy with throwing things and hitting. Sometimes it is cranky crazy and meltdowns occur. Sometimes it is silly crazy or staggery crazy. Tonight it was jump on (or off) the furniture crazy.

Dalton started by jumping off his stool (about 6 inches high). I had to jump off it too as part of the game. He then moved up to jumping off of his crib (does it count as a crib if he's never slept in it?). He wanted me to jump off this too, but I declined on grounds I was too heavy and the crib is too cheap. I suggested that maybe we would want to jump off the coffee/game/craft table (shown in Figure 1) in the playroom. We jumped off this a few times with Dalton upping the ante by requiring spins in the air. Then he discovered that he could leap from the coffee table to the couch. We had about 15 minutes of this with him even timing his leaps so I could get some action shots. Go go flying toddler!