It’s hard to stay in a routine when you’re out of your own home. And this trip away has been no different. I’ve been needing to lie next to her to get her to go to sleep at night. Although, at least once she’s asleep, she pretty much stays asleep. Vast improvement from last trip where she woke every 2-3 hours (you can also find this trip in the dictionary under hell). And her naps are much the same, but at least she’s taking them.
But what I think you don’t realise unless you are around babies and toddlers a fair bit is that adult time has nothing to do with toddler time. If I’m hungry a half hour wait for food is not that big of a deal. For a toddler, even 5 minutes can be akin to actively starving them. And they’re just as likely to go help themselves from the fridge, rather than wait such an unrealistic period of time. And it’s the same with naps. While it might seem like it shouldn’t be problematic to put them down half an hour or forty five minutes later than usual. You would be wrong. Dead wrong. Every minute that you put off that nap, is another 5 that you are going to spend coaxing them out of their over-tiredness and into slumber.
But worse than any of those things is that people don’t get that toddlers have no sense of time, but understand everything else pretty perfectly. Actually, this isn’t a holiday-related or away-from-home peeve. This is a general one, that bugs the hell out of me. So here goes, if you are going to do something with a toddler (go for a walk, play, eat etc) do not give them any inkling about it until it’s going to happen. Saying something like let’s go for a walk and then spending half an hour getting ready, is not cool in toddler land. I imagine the internal thought process goes something like this: Walk? Walk! WALK! Why the hell aren’t you moving, and why is that door closed? WALK! Oooh, ball. WALK! Oooh, shiny object. WALK! Are you even going to take me for a walk, did you lie? Are you a deceptive liar?! WALK!
You get the idea.
My name is Zoey. 
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