...of nap advice

A friend of mine told me yesterday that Abram's naps shouldn't be going until 5:00 (this is when he usually wakes up).  I thought that she would tell me that it was because then he wouldn't fall asleep well at night - to which I was going to reply that he hasn't had any problem with going to be at 8/8:30, so I was ok with a late nap.  However, she warned me that if my children slept past 3:00 for their naps and went to bed too late, they wouldn't grow up tall.  I should mention that English is her second language and it was difficult to get much more of an explanation out of her, other than personal experiences she has had with people who put their kids to bed early and had nice, tall children.

Let me tell you that I scoffed a little in my mind at that moment, because 1) it seemed strange that anything other than genetics would determine how tall someone would be and 2) I don't see any problem with the way Abram's schedule has been and it is personally working really well for us.  Sure, he wakes up a little earlier than I would like (about 7am), but then he takes a good 3 hour nap from about 1:30-4:30 ish everyday and goes to bed at about 8:30 every night with no problems.

So I did a little research.  Come to find out, our bodies' growth hormones are in fact, tied to our sleep. You are probably thinking, "Duh, Anaka.  Everyone knows that."  Well I didn't, thank you.  But I do now.  However, it did not convince me to do anything to change Abram's schedule.  Apparently, growth hormone levels seem to be directly tied to slow wave sleep (as opposed to REM sleep).  Slow wave sleep is the deep sleep that we achieve usually at least one hour after falling asleep and when we get good amounts of sleep at night.  Actually, I read that REM sleep predominates around 8-10am and slow wave sleep predominates from 4-6pm. So the fact that Abram is waking up "early", getting a good, solid, deep three hour nap in the late afternoon, and sleeping a good 11 hours at night with no waking, would make it probable that he is actually getting fairly high amounts of slow wave sleep and, therefore, growth hormone.  Also, the growth hormone doesn't just affect height, but also things like organ development in children.

Interesting, right?  Who knew? I tried to stick to scientific study findings and article abstracts for my information, but will readily admit that I only did about 15 minutes of reading and research.

All of that to say that I am really blessed by my wonderfully sleeping almost two and half year old and hopefully he will grow big and tall because of it (but maybe his Daddy's height will play a role as well).

Regarding another napping child: Selah has been amazing these last few days.  I hesitate to talk about it here, because when I do, she inevitably stops being wonderful the next day.  But I'll just pray that it continues and thank the Lord for these last few days.  She has been going to bed at 7:30 and then waking up around 6:30. I've woken up (probably from slow wave sleep :) and had a hard time getting the motivation to hop up and go in a feed her, because she is just quietly babbling to herself and not crying.  But the last three days, when I finally go in there ready to feed her at 7:15ish, she has put herself back to sleep and then slept until 9am.  Not only that, but then I put her down at 10:30 for her first nap, even though it seems crazy that she would already be tired after 13 ish hours of sleep, and she take a 2-2.5 hour nap!  The only down side to this is that she is getting up right when Abram is going down and then she goes down for a short afternoon nap (from about 3:30-4:30) and there is maybe one hour where they are sleeping at the same time, if we are lucky.

But all in all, my kids have been providing many opportunities to thank God this week and I feel so blessed by Him through them and just wanted to document for posterity.  And make you read it.

You're welcome.