To nap or not to nap?

Amelia's at the age when she should have a nap every day, but will often resist falling asleep. At least, that's the opinion of the authors I've read on the subject.

Yesterday I did my darnest to get Amelia to take a nap. At one point I even had her sit in "time out" on the stool we set up down the hall for just this purpose. It seemed that Amelia would not stay in her room unless she thought I was watching her, so I knelt quietly at this computer and fiddled around while I waited for her to fall asleep. (You see, the stool we are using for her rare "time out" sessions is the seat we normally use at the computer.)

After a while, I heard Amelia's door open. I tried to ignore it figuring that seeing mommy would just make Amelia more likely to want to stay awake. A little while later I thought I felt a pair of eyes upon me. I turned around but didn't see anyone. A couple of minutes later I was sure I heard footsteps coming down the hall. More frustrated than mad I turned around and found that Amelia had brought our stool all the way down the hall with her. She sat it down behind me and said, "Here, sit on it." I sat on the stool and she half stated, half gestured for me to pull the stool up to the computer. Once I was comfortably seated in front of this keyboard Amelia asked, "How's that?"

I was so impressed with Amelia's thoughtfulness that I gave her a hug and forgot about her nap. She was pretty tired when night came, but you want to be tired at night, right?

Funny thing is today I thought I'd skip Amelia's nap all together. Diana took a long baby nap and when she woke up I found Amelia sitting on daddy's chair with a nearly empty box of crackers in her lap. As she ate the crackers her eyes became heavier and heavier until eventually she fell asleep where she sat.

So I guess the bottom line is sometimes Amelia needs a nap and sometimes she doesn't. I guess it's more about watching her to see how sleepy she is than watching the clock.

Lisa