I am going to post more kids centric stuff every once and awhile. It is my life now so It is important for me. My kids, both 1.5 years old now and I am the stay at home dad, my life revolves around my kids. I don’t feel that is important for them to get a nap in when we are busy out doing things. But when we are home and I have things to do, It is important for me for them to get some naps in. We have two revolving nap schedules at the moment. They are pretty much the same except that I rotate the afternoon nap. Let me just tell you the two napping schedules.

8:00 Breakfast
10:00 Nap (depending on if we are home)
12:00 Lunch
2:00 – 4:00 Nap
4:00 Snack
7:00 Dinner

The above nap is for going out in the mornings. With this schedule we will go to the doctors, the museum, hiking, or just shopping in the morning. This isn’t my favorite nap schedule, but it is nice for me to have lunch in peace at home. During the summer time it can get a bit hot during this nap time and I don’t like to do anything. I am not much of a morning person, but force myself to get going. This is supposedly a better napping schedule for your kids to go to bed sooner.

8:00 Breakfast
10:00 Nap
12:00 Lunch
3:30 Snack
4:00 – 6:00 Nap
7:00 Dinner

This is my favorite nap schedule and I can get a lot done during this time. We have lunch together and then we go out shopping right after. This is good for afternoon shopping when there isn’t very many people out to worry about. I like to get my grocery shopping done during this time right after lunch. I am more of an afternoon person. Right after the 6pm nap we will go straight to the park and run around like crazy. Even though there naps and sleeping are so close to each other, my kids don’t have a real problem with sleeping the night.

During the week we will switch between these two different napping schedules a lot. If a nap doesn’t work I will just try again 30 minutes later. Maybe it was something that I did that made them upset and I try to notice that and do better the next time. We don’t allow toys in the bed and they understand that, and will most of the time drop the toy because it is nap time. And nap time stuff stays in the crib (blanket, pacifier).