The beginning of the end of nap time?! No!

I am afraid we are nearing the end of afternoon nap for Austin and I am not ready! He has never been a long napper. He ended his morning nap by about 10 months old. He has regularly had days where he did not sleep since age 2, but the past few months he rarely sleeps in the afternoon. We still have naptime every day, but he plays, talks and sings the whole time. Since sharing a room with Bennett, he usually "naps" in my room and often the room is a disaster by the time I get him up.

Well, up until now he has not been able to open the doors to his and my rooms. They stick really badly in the door frame and are really hard to open, so like it or not he has stayed put. Until now. Now he can suddenly open all the doors and we are having repeated appearances during nap. Today I had just fallen asleep on the office bed when in pops Austin. I told him he could get up if he played quietly in the den, but later he went in his room while Bennett was napping.

Bennett is starting to only need one daytime nap. I still put him down twice, but this week he has not slept any in the afternoon after sleeping in the morning. I have been waking him after morning nap in hopes that he will sleep again in the afternoon. I would drop his morning nap, but he really needs it. If he doesn't nap he is cranky by 10 am. Very. He is also cranky if he doesn't sleep in the afternoon by 5, but there is not much to be done about that. SO...how will I survive without some down time in the afternoon? I often use that time to rest, read my Bible, prep dinner and twice a week I meet with people during that time. I will have to make some new plans. I am still hopeful I can get Austin to rest in a room with books for an hour, but it has been uphill going so far. As much as he likes books, he cannot or will not sit still that long at naptime. We will see- this is not happening without great effort on my part to keep a naptime- but the inevitable may be here.