Thanks to our swimming, lunching and shopping exploits today, we inadvertently conducted a little experiment = how long could the girls stay awake for with absolutely no daytime nap?
G seems to have decided that 5am is the new 7am and we have been treated to a very early wake-up call for the last few mornings. Yesterday, despite a fairly busy morning in the park, G really was not happy about going up for her usual post-lunch snooze and let me, R and the whole street know exactly how she felt about it. They only nap for about 45 minutes to an hour at nursery, so they can cope with less sleep - well, G can.
R has always needed more sleep than her sister. She quite happily sleeps for 12 hours at night and seems to need a 2 hour nap in the day as well. She only gave up the morning nap at 13 months when G decided on behalf of both of them that she didn't need it any more.
The girls finally passed out in the car on the way back from Bluewater at 5.05pm and snoozed (loudly in R's case) for the 20 minute journey home. This power-nap seemed to be enough to tide them over until their normal 7pm bedtime. I'm not sure that I fancy trying to keep them awake every day though - R was extremely grumpy from about 2pm onwards, her displeasure becoming more vocal with every passing half-hour. G adopted a Blitz spirit attitude and sang and danced her way through her tiredness.
As a result of this, we have decided to limit the daytime nap to an hour and a half for R (perhaps a bit less for G) and not let them sleep beyond 2pm. They are at nursery for the next couple of days so we'll put the new nap plan into action on Wednesday.
