This week I got to spend a rest time with Micaiah. We were out of our normal routine, at my parents' house, and so I laid down with him to nap. I closed my eyes and rested, pretended to sleep as an example to Micaiah, and was able to observe his most-interesting rest time habits. At home, I let him play with his toys or look at books until he is eventually tired and goes to sleep. On a typical day it takes about an hour for him to settle down and get some shut eye.
This week I got a bigger picture of what it is he actually does when he plays up there in his room. This is how it went: he laid down, then got up and played, and then laid down again. If you know Micaiah, he's very quick. So I think he went through this cycle about seven times before I decided to take a more detailed observation.
The detailed events happened like this: he lays down 22 seconds, gets up, takes a drink, goes into the kitchen and does SOMETHING (not exactly sure what) for a few seconds, and comes back out. Lays down on the couch again, this time for a total of 13 seconds. He gets up, takes a drink, and looks out the window. Then follows a series of climbing up on the couch (for about a second), getting back down and looking out the window. Next he comes over and tries to manually open my eyes with his hand, unscuccessfully. He never says mommy or talks to me while doing this, but tries it several times. Since that didn't work, he lays down on a cushion on the floor for three seconds. Then he sits up and starts pretend-reading some books that he has. After a couple of books, I'm rested, have decided he is NOT going to sleep after an hour of this, and we get up.
The next day (after a very whiny afternoon) I put him in Yam Yam and Bob Bob's pack n play with a successful sleep time by himself.
By the way, he is 3 years and about 3 weeks!
