by Laura Falin posted in Life

It's a mysterious phenomenon that happens every year around this time. Kids who gave up napping years ago are now coming home from school exhausted, desperate for an afternoon siesta. I was reading this BabyCenter thread where moms were asking each other about it just this week.
It's totally normal.
Every one of my kids, by the time they got to kindergarten, had given up sleeping in the afternoons. But it didn't take me long to notice that once school started, they needed that nap back desperately. They'd come home, barely hold it together through lunch, and I'd send them straight to bed. One of my kids kept it up for the next three years -- she didn't always need a nap, but she needed to sit in her room by herself for at least half an hour after school to wind down before she could come out and deal with people again.
It makes sense. Kids go from fairly unstructured time over the summer to sitting in chairs and learning new rules and (hopefully!) making friends and even learning a new bathroom policy each year. And this is all before they even begin trying to learn to read and do math and all that other stuff. No wonder they're exhausted.
I've noticed that my kids tend to take about two weeks to adjust. In the meantime, they're tired and cranky and argumentative and just fried when they get home. If it makes you feel better, kids will often hold it together at school and then fall apart at home where it's safe, so...maybe see it as a compl...