Tried Something New Today

[SilverSabre25]

I served lunch about an hour early, and then put them down for naps early too.

They all went right to sleep, even though it was so early. They are all still asleep and I'm going to let them go right on sleeping until they wake up or until 4 o'clock, whichever comes first. They have a whole extra hour to sleep extra, today.

If they are all up by 3 or 3:15, we will go outside for the rest of the afternoon.

I hope to catch everyone up on their sleep and get us more outside time by doing this. I may end up bumping lunch up even further if I have to. I'm dropping AM snack, which should simplify our mornings a little bit (everyone arrives by 8 AM now, so if we do breakfast at 8:15 and lunch at 11 or 11:30, there is no need for an AM snack.

[mismatchedsocks]

I used to do lunch at 12 when i first started. I had ALOT of kids struggling to stay awake until then or fall asleep at table. No we do lunch at 11:30ish each day, but Mondays we do 11:00. The weekend always throws everyone off!

I feel guilty if I let them sleep until they wake up if its past the 3 hour mark, so i usually wake them up. I think some would sleep until their parents got here!

[Meyou]

I started doing early lunch in September and I love it. We eat at 11:15 and everyone is asleep by 12 at the latest.

[Oneluckymom]

I've been doing lunch between 11:00 and 11:30 for about a week now and it works out great. I've also dropped AM snack as well and just do breakfast at 8-8:30 and lunch at 11:30 and PM snack at 3-3:30.

Working great!!

[cheerfuldom]

yup, we do lunch at 11 for that same reason. Even my 2.5 year old DCG can't make it to 12.

[morgan24]

I do lunch at 11:30 and they are all sleeping shortly after noon. If I let them eat later sometimes they get their second wind and think they don't need a nap.

[hoopinglady]

I've been thinking about this for awhile too. Everyone has been chilling or sleeping until it gets light around 8 or so, we eat breakfast, later a snack and lunch is around 12 30 or 1! They are not laying down until 1-130, wake up around 330 usually.

I'd like to see them have a bit of play time between lunch and sleep. Also I think that long of a morning is probably harder on the toddlers.

[Sunchimes]

Mine are the busiest and most active right after lunch. By 2, they have wound down and take nice naps. The weekend had their schedules off yesterday, and they both went to sleep right after lunch. The problem with that as a normal schedule is that the hours between 2 and 6:30 are almost unbearably long. By 5, dcg was a cranky bear and I couldn't put her down that late in the day. If I had early pickups, it sounds like a good system.

[kidkair]

I recently changed to no snack and lunch at 11 but not so they sleep earlier. I did it to get out in the sun about noon and get them some fresh air before nap. It's been working great thus far. They sleep from 1 to 3.

[SilverSabre25]

Day 2 and it's working great! Two are up already today (slept for ~two hours) and one is still sleeping. They were nowhere near as crabby as usual when they woke up either! If it wasn't raining we would be heading outside after snack in a little while--yesterday we got 1 hour of outside time in, which was great! Instead, today after snack we are going to make Reindeer Food and maybe do a small, quick (mess-free, lol) craft.