The long road to sleeping

O slept during nap today.

And yesterday.

And the day before that.

And two of the five days last week.

I don't want to jinx it, but I think she may be finally settling in to the routine! I guess it just takes some children...5 months...to learn how to lay quietly on a blanket. We've had to do lots of little tweaks to reach this point.

The first two months were exclusively trying to find a place in the nap room, thinking she just needed to adjust to the space. After it was pretty clear that wasn't the case O was placed on a chair outside the nap room until she could control her body and keep from waking the other nappers up.

Hence began the time of shifting. Shifting her off the cot, shifting her out of the nap room, shifting her to the classroom to rest, shifting her to the coat room, and shifting an adult to sit by the coat room to ensure she wasn't doing circus tricks.

Finally we had gotten her to the point where she could stay on the blanket, though not necessarily still or quiet, for the rest hour. But the crankiness and occasional meltdowns when it was time to go home convinced us teachers that she needed to actually sleep as well.

And so the little tweaks started. Choosing 3 books to look at and help make the transition. A light stool defining the space for her blanket between it and the wall. And a pep talk about how important it is to focus on laying still when she gets impatient.

Phew, talk about a lot of work to get one little girl to sleep.
Welcome to the world of Montessori preschool....I don't recall covering this in training.....