Nap time

I am thinking of getting rid of Sasha's naps. We have found in the past few weeks..could it be only 2, or more? Just seems like a lifetime..she is sleeping later and later. Last night she slept at 11pm. We started her routine at 8pm as usual. She just refused to sleep. She has stopped her tantrums, but that may be because we use her attempts to get our approval against her in that I have no qualms about continuing to read my book in bed while she stands next to me for an hour. I will ask her every 10 minutes if she has decided to get into bed. She will usually say no and I reassure her that she can do anything she wants but she is NOT getting into bed with me nor is she going downstairs...so her options are pretty limited. She wants to test wills?? Well, you've chosen the wrong person baby..You inherited that stubbornness from ME! It usually works much much faster if her Dad doesn't get involved. If he does then she knows whose strings she has to pull. As it is she now only wants Daddy to read her bedtime stories. When I read to her, 3 is he limit and then we start the whole test of wills, which she will give up soon enough and she lies in bed until she sleeps. She knows that Mummy does not want to be mad. When we leave it to her Dad, I find them having tickling fests, or building towers etc. She cries her crocodile tears and her Dad is in there for an extra hour reading. I leave it up to them usually as it is HIS hour or two and Sasha probably needs the balance between good cop bad cop that we play at home. Last night, as I went up to get my book, I found D giving Sash piggy back rides...sigh....so I reminded him that getting her revved up for play really isn't the best route to putting her to bed. You should have seen how contrite both looked as I caught them..hahahaha..quite funny actually. She also knows that if D is in bed, she will go to his side and stand there..tickle his feet etc and poof, before I can say DoDo Sasha she is in bed with us being tickled. I give them 5-10 minutes of playtime then I give her an ultimatum..her bed..or her bed. Usually by then I am either using a very low tone so she knows that Mummy will be shouting in a few minutes unless...she knows then that she is thiiiis close to pushing the boundaries. We then get her tucked in and a couple of rounds of Buenos Noches later, she is in on her way to lalaland.

So, I am thinking maybe she will be more amendable to night sleep if she does not have naps. But I need that 2-3 hour break when she naps, and she is required to nap at daycare anyway (Thats how we became religious about nap times...call it day care persecution). And the idea of taking away the nap times with the baby coming just makes me sick actually. Maybe we will try playing it by ear and let her stay awake in the afternoons if she really doesn't want to nap. Right now some days we have a similar sort of struggle during nap times when she is at her most alert. Except she stays in bed and sings...