Cara Dumaplin takes her 13-month-old granddaughter May to a farmer's market and navigates an unexpected nap schedule on the drive home. She and her companion Andy debate whether to keep May awake to protect a later nap window, but May falls asleep anyway 21 minutes from home. Cara emphasizes that even good sleepers have off days, and the key is following the child's cues rather than rigidly protecting the schedule.
I have to ask you, what would you do in this situation? My daughter and I decided that we were gonna go to a farmer's market. She's bringing her baby, my granddaughter May. She's 13 months old. May falls asleep in the car when we're about 25 minutes away. Okay, no big deal. We wake her up when we get there. She's happy as can be, looking at everything. The only time she got upset was when we tried to take her picture. They had this thing set up. She was really happy until her mom like took 3 steps away. Look at that bottom lip. But other than that, totally happy. Now it's maybe like 12:05. We're going to head home. 30 minutes into the drive, May's still back there. La la la. And he's like, what am I going to do for a nap? She's still awake back there. Maybe she'll stay awake this whole drive home. She'll sleep from like 1 to 3, and then you can do an early bedtime. Let's say 6:30, 6:45. It'll be perfect. So let's like keep her awake. So we're talking to her. 21 minutes from home, she is out cold. She woke up when we brought her in the house. She's like, oh, what are we doing? So Andy and I kind of look at each other and she's like, okay, so now what do I do? You're just gonna go with it. You're gonna watch Mae. She's gonna let you know when she needs a nap. Whatever she does, she does. That's what she did. Some days that's what you're gonna do. If you have a good sleeper about 80% of the time, then on these off days it's okay. Most little ones are gonna do better than you can even imagine. Mwah! You're so cute.
