No Naps Changes Everything

The road to not napping is paved with good intentions.
It is a long, arduous journey into night.
It starts with the occasionally missed nap.
Our world has always been very routine.
Juna's always napped at the same time for the same amount of time.
If she doesn't, it is one of the first signs that something is amiss.
She might be sick, or teething, reaching a milestone or a growth spurt.
So, she here and there missed a nap... once a month, once every 3 weeks, 2 weeks...
until we were down to an average of a missed nap every week on a regular basis.
But, she was still napping the other 6 days, then it was 5 days, then 3 or 4.
Oh, I fought it.  We tried every day.  But the trying got harder and harder.
There were a lot of days when she or I or both of us were in tears.
There were so many days when we were both exhausted, but she didn't nap.
I would spend all my energy putting her down for her nap,
then, if she didn't sleep, then I was completely spent,
but still had 3 or 4 very long, I mean, never-ending hours before a short break.
When we got to the point when trying to take a nap was harder then not,
I finally gave up the ghost.  We stopped napping.  Life was over, as we knew it.
That was about 6 weeks ago.  At first, I had to take a "nap."
I never napped with her before, but i would be so tired,
I would have to lay down for 15-20 minute (that's about all she would allow).
She had the option of laying with me, not very restful for me,
but in the early days of no more napping,
it meant the possibly of her also falling asleep,
or she could play by herself.

Every sleep transition has been an extremely difficult time for us.
Except maybe the first, when she started 2 naps around 3 months old.
The summer of 1, she went down to one nap.
the summer of 2, her nap became later and shorter,
the summer of 3, she stopped napping, and everything has changed.

No Naps Changed EVERYTHING
1.  Earlier bedtime.  From 9:30 to 7:30.  (you think yay, but wait for it)
2.  Earlier wake-up.  From 7:30 to 6:30 to 6:00 to 5:30 to 5.  What?
3.  Juna's always fell asleep really quickly (from 2-10 minute at nap, 10-15 minutes at bedtime) until this past year (15-20 minutes at nap, 15-30 minutes at bedtime), now she is so tired at bedtime, she falls right to sleep... however, she is falling asleep while nursing... errrrrr.  We stopped that long ago.
4.  For a while she was waking up every 45-60 minutes for the first 4 hours.
5.  She doesn't sleep through the night anymore, not yet.  She usually wakes 3 times now, but woke a lot more at the beginning of the transition.
6.  When she wakes, she doesn't go right back to sleep, which she always did before... which meant, that I also went right back to sleep.  Now it can be 20-30 minutes, and I think that is why, if she wakes at 5 or later, she doesn't go back to sleep.  If we are awake more then 10 minutes, it is very hard to go back to sleep.
7.  She now has to get up to use the potty in the middle of the night, she never did this before (I guess she just held it all night).
8.  Because she is waking more and staying awake longer during those wake-ups, she also has other needs... I need to find my baby, I need water, I need aloe for my bug bites, etc.
9.  Long long long long days.  Did I say long days?  5:30 am until 7:30 pm on our longest, if I'm lucky, I get a 45 minute break before bedtime.  Of course, she is in preschool these days (if she's not sick, which makes the days twice as long), so I don't have too many of these days... but even the days in school, the afternoon is so long, because that is the tired part of the day.
10.  Juna and I can be cranky, moody and impatient in the afternoons, without a nap.  She can also be whiny.
11.  We have eliminated one nursing.  Yay.  But she still wants to nurse all the time.  And now, we nurse so so long in the morning, so I can keep her in bed until 6 or 6:30.
12.  We have to go out and do something in the afternoons, or we get tired and cranky.  It's hard to come up with things to do.  It's hard not to spend money to do things.  There aren't as many friends hanging out in the afternoons.

And then there are the changes for me...

Raw

4:00 am (approximate times)
A coughing jag woke you.
4:10 am
I gave you some cough medicine right away, experience has taught me not to wait and see.  It was a new cough medicine, and it didn't work great.
4:30 am
Still coughing.  Nursing.  I gave you another small dose and sat up with you in my lap, nursing, so your congestion could drain.
4:40 am
Coughing subsided.  Laid back down.  Coughing continued.  Tried and tried to go to sleep.
5:00 am
Wrapped you in your blankie, walked to living room and rocked in grandma's rocking chair.  Still coughing.  Sang 10 rounds of Frere Jacques.  Imagined my grandmother rocking my father back to sleep in the middle of the night, in this very chair.  Coughing subsided but you didn't fall asleep.
5:30 am
Back in bed. Tried and tried to go back to sleep.  My first breakdown. 
5:45 am
My second breakdown.
6:00 am
Told you I could not nurse anymore.  I give you my hand to hold instead.  You said you wanted to nurse over and over again.  You got upset.  Tried again to go to sleep.  Couldn't.  Wanted to nurse again.  Repeat.  Repeat.
6:15 am
My third breakdown.
6:30 am
Nursing again. You fell asleep.  I got up to message our friends that we wouldn't be available today.
6:45 am
I fell asleep.
7:30 am
You woke up.  You said, "Damn it.  I have a hair in my mouth."  What?  I tried to casually figure out where you had gotten this word.  Had I said it at some point during the torturous night?
7:45 am
We got out of bed.  You are in a fine mood and I look and feel like I've been run over by a truck.