She Doesn't Nap

So my girl stopped napping at 2+ years old.  She will be 4 years old in a few months time.

Those long afternoons were very dreadful for me initially.  But it has been a while, and I've become so used to it.   My sister who also has 2 girls told me, "Just pretend to fall asleep and she will sleep." But no, it didn't work at all. Mine would whine, cry and scream.  My sister's coming-6 and 4 year olds are still taking afternoon naps.  I've reasoned and threatened.  Nothing works.

She'll always have her endless reasonings as well:

"but I'm not tired!"

"but I already have energy!"

"I want to go down the bed already"

"I'm awake already" (after closing her eyes for a few seconds)

"it's 4 o'clock already" (when i set a time restriction to lie on bed till a certain time)

"wake up!!!!!!" (when i pretended to sleep)

"I napped already.  I closed my eyes when I was walking just now" (this is classic!)

For a short period of time, implementing quiet time worked.  I made her do silent reading.  But it only lasted a while.  

As she approaches 4 years old, I've given up all hope that she would nap (yeah, I was still hoping!).  She gets about 11 hours of night time sleep, and that seems sufficient for her.  In the meantime, I'm still training myself to sleep earlier (I can't) so that I'll have energy to keep going the whole day. 

Interesting Reads on Giftedness in Children

Here are some articles on the topic of gifted children that I enjoyed reading.  I'm listing them here for my own reference as well as for sharing.
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Where Have All The Girls Gone?
http://www.jeffcogifted.org/images/jagc/pdfs/where_have_all_the_girls_gone.pdf

Small Poppies: Highly Gifted Children in the Early Years
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10124.aspx

It's A New Year and A New Montessori School...and Eczema!

After an eventful year end of wedding dinners and christmas parties, it's the start of a bright new year!

My girl starts Nursery in a Montessori kindergarten this year.   I hope that she'll get more challenging work in a Montessori school compared to the school she attended last year.  So far so good, she has been cooperative in going to school, and happily gets dropped off.

What is sad for me is, my girl suddenly developed eczema.   It happened about 2 weeks ago.  The rash started from the back of her knees and eventually it's all over her body.  Her doctor prescribed Fucicort to treat the eczema, as well as a soap-free cleanser (Milderm) and moisturiser (Ceradan) to keep her skin moisturised.  Milderm is nice but the lack of bubbles is annoying as I can't tell whether I've washed her thoroughly, especially since I am using it for her hair too. It also lists parabens in its ingredients list. However, it keeps her hair tangle-free (big plus!).  My girl misses her soap bubbles and has been asking when she can use back her old soap (Calfiornia Baby Calendula wash).  Ceradan kept the itch in check, but it did not prevent the recurrence and spread of the eczema rashes to other parts of the body.  Therefore I decided to give Physiogel AI cream a try. Let's see if it works!

[update: I eventually brought my girl to National Skin Centre where the doc dignosed her rashes as a viral rash - Pityriasis Rosea. She said it was not eczema (arrghh..the amount of money I'd spend on expensive creams was redundant!).  The diagnosis was made based on the Christmas tree pattern of the rashes on her body.  The rashes will and did eventually go away on its own without any medical intervention.]