Coping with Worn Out Kids

It probably doesn’t take much to guess what brings this post on today. Brought my daughter home from school today, and she was clearly cranky and tired, as was her brother. I think it relates to the time change.

We got home, and the fighting started immediately. All just grouchy, cranky stuff that every parent has to deal with from kids.

So right now I have round one in effect. Both are taking naps. That’s normal for my son, but at 5 my daughter really doesn’t want to nap, even though sometimes she is tired enough for one. So I have a 15 minute timer, and a rule that if she starts playing loudly the time starts over. Quiet play is fine; this is time for her to relax and hopefully fall asleep.

This has always worked well on both my kids. When they’re less tired the rule is to simply go into their rooms until they’re willing to play and talk nicely. A minute or two often does it. They judge the time themselves, and are really pretty good at it. My needing to resort to a nap off the usual schedule is rare.

Sometimes popping a movie in isn’t so bad a solution either. It’s good for those days when I know one or both of the children are tired, yet completely unwilling to nap. The kids may well fall asleep in front of it, although my son shows less tendency towards that than my daughter.

Tired kids can of course lead to a tired mommy, and it makes it really hard to work at home. I am very, very tempted to take a nap today myself today. But this quiet time when I’m not sure how long it will last is also something to be treasured; hence here I am, blogging away.

And nope, my daughter didn’t fall asleep during the timed nap. She’s up now and much mellower. As far as I’m concerned, it worked.

[tags]tired kids,family,children[/tags]