Birthday party season in our family is upon us. Our family has a disproportionately high number of tiny friends born in the same two month period. As such, we are invited to many fun toddler and preschooler parties back to back.
The debate always begins with a party invitation.
“So-and-so has a birthday party on the 22nd.”
“Great.”
“It starts at 1:00pm.”
Oh, the dilemma —the event that overlaps with naptime. The age-old question arises, “Do I skip/move the nap and risk that my son will be an absolute savage? Or do I skip the party to keep his schedule (and potentially) my sanity?”
We have lots of toddler friends. For every one of our friends that NEVER skips a nap, there’s another one that doesn’t think twice about bringing their child to the party. Sometimes I think it’s much easier to fall squarely on one side or the other—that way the decision is clear. But my husband and I have discussed that we want to be somewhere in the middle. We want structure but we also want our children to be somewhat adaptable. The challenge is—where do we draw the line?
I’d like to preface this by saying that not every 2-year-old has an equal need for naps. Some families are adaptable or structured by necessity—either their child doesn’t really NEED the nap or their child absolutely DOES. My older son falls into the MUST NAP category. He has never gone a full day without a nap, though the length and timing of the nap can be somewhat flexible. Somewhat. He is also not terribly pleasant when he’s overtired. You know the type. He’s overtired, so he’s cranky and impatient…so he throws his truck and then cries because the truck “fell down.” No dude, you THREW the truck. What do you have, overtired toddler amnesia?
So for every invitation, we debate. We weigh the pros and cons. The likelihood that it’ll go well and be a great experience vs. the likelihood that our son will meltdown and try to set fire to the bounce house. He’s surprised us with his adaptability before—he’s coped well without as much sleep as we thought he’d need, and he’s been able to really enjoy events with friends. But for every few successes, we have at least an occasional disaster—and let’s be honest—the disasters seem to stick in the mind ever so clearly. There was the time we let him have a “sleepover” with his friend and he ended up keeping his both his friend and us up for the majority of the night. The time we moved the nap later so he could go to the party and he woke up screaming, and kept screaming, for a half an hour because he was overtired.
I so badly want my child to be adaptable. But I also need to acknowledge that he has limits—and that he can’t always verbalize those limits. So it’s toddler roulette; naptime roulette.
This idea seems to apply across the board. How far do we push? How much do we accommodate? I want him to have fun, new experiences…and life doesn’t always coincide with nap and nighttime schedules.
This weekend is our latest gamble. Two nights away in a condo with friends: three families, six children, my younger son’s first night away from home, all the way in Vermont. There is no easy escape if it all goes awry.
Maybe he’ll rise to the occasion.
Maybe he’ll burn the place down.
There is no in between.
Pray for us.
