Kaitlyn Preschooler Summary: Age 3

Daily life, schedule, and routine for a 3 year old toddler. See how the preschooler’s sleep was going and how eating was going.

3 year old at her birthda party

Now that Kaitlyn is three, she has moved into the preschooler category. That makes my heart hurt a little! Kaitlyn is my toddler! Oh sigh.

SLEEPING

At the last summary, I mentioned that Kaitlyn wasn’t sleeping well for some naps.

That apparently was an issue of lack of physical exercise. Once the weather turned nice and she could get good play outside, she went back to sleeping well again. So she is once again taking great naps of about 2-3 hours a day and sleeping about 12 hours a night.

Something notable is that her nap starts later than it used to. It keeps her synced up with the other two kids more this way.

Another notable item is that she is sleeping in later. I was having to wake her up each morning so she could eat and get ready before I got McKenna up. Now we all eat together, and I am having us wait and eat on McKenna’s schedule, so Kaitlyn gets up later each morning.

>>>Read: When Do Children Stop Napping and What To Do Instead

EATING

Eating is going well. Kaitlyn has always had her issues with foods. Certain foods irritated her reflux. I don’t know if they still irritate her or if she just has bad memories, but she doesn’t like them. These are foods like berries and tomatoes.

I get that.

There are foods I still can’t eat because I threw up so much when I was pregnant with Brayden, so I understand the lack of ability to eat foods that have caused you pain, discomfort, or disgust. Someday she might like them. If not, oh well.

POTTY TRAINING

It is funny how something that was a seemingly huge issue three months ago is now a distant memory. Potty training is fabulous. She is fully trained and has no issues. She even wipes herself after she uses the bathroom, which is something I am still working on with my nearly five year old child.

SIBLINGS

Everything is great on the sibling front. Kaitlyn gets along well with both of her siblings. She looks up to Brayden and nurtures McKenna. She is very patient with McKenna and very kind to her.

EMOTIONS

Oh boy. The emotions started out high right around her third birthday. I asked around and mothers of girls said their daughters got highly emotional around age three, also. Kaitlyn is currently a month past her third birthday, and she isn’t super-emotional anymore. I am hoping it was a phase that is now over.

Around the same time of the high emotions, my husband and I realized that we had been keeping her up past her bedtime quite often. It was beautiful weather and we didn’t want to burn daylight putting kids to bed. But alas, it is something we must do 🙂 So we have been very consistent with it for the last few weeks.

>>>Read: How To Respond to Your Emotional Preschooler

FRIENDSHIP

Kaitlyn has a neighbor friend she loves to play with who is about her age. It is fun to see her developing a friendship.

TANTRUMS

Her tantrum peak I talked about in the last post is behind us. It has been replaced with emotions 🙂

3 year old schedule pinnable image

OUR SCHEDULE

Times are approximate for the most part. This is the order of our day, but most times are “ish

7:30-8:00–wake. Take a bath and get ready for the day.
8:30–breakfast
9:00–sibling playtime with Brayden and McKenna
9:15–help me with chores.
9:30-9:45ish–Learning activity.
10:30ish–independent playtime
11:30–Possible TV time. Most days she does independent play until 12:00
12:00–Free time with Brayden
12:30–lunch. We then play outside if it is a nice day. If not, we play inside all together.
1:30 or 2:00–nap
4:30–wake. Free time.
5:30ish–dinner followed by family time.
7:30-8:00–in bed

GOOD BOOKS

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6 thoughts on “Kaitlyn Preschooler Summary: Age 3”

  1. I love these summaries, so thanks for doing these on your older 2! By the way, i noticed behavioural issues at 3 with mine so it sounds developmentally normal:)I am curious about how you mentioned her nap issues were tied in with lack of exercise. Could you describe how much exercise she gets in length and what activity she does in the AM before nap and after nap? I am curious as I think it affects my DD's sleep but I find it is a very fine line with her. If it's a bit too much, she is overtired (even though she seems "fine", but she'll shortnap or she'll take a longer than usual time to fall asleep at night and wake early in the AM). It might be an issue unique to my 2 girls but I'm curious as to how much exercise other kids have in the preschool age. (On an aside I notice this issue mainly with the PM. You have a pretty short Atime after her nap to bed so maybe you have to exercise her pretty hard to be tired then?) I do recall in my Weissbluth book that 20 min of physical activity is pretty much good for any kid he says. I'm just curious what other moms do:)Thanks again!

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  2. It seems just being able to play outside is the trick. It might be as short as 30 minutes, but it might be a couple of hours. We have a large playground that they play on a lot. I read the other day that 3 year olds should be getting 30-60 minutes of physical exercise a day, so that might be a good starting point for you.

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  3. ok thanks. It might be partly just the fresh air doing the trick. I think people who live in colder climates have basements and maybe the kids can run around down there but i'm sure it's not the same as outside in the fresh air. I find I get tired from that.Do you make sure your older 2 gets exercise in the PM after their naps? Or mainly just the AM and the PM is more low-key? We tend to do the park,etc in the AM. We are almost going to have the opposite problem and it's getting SOOO hot we have to go out first thing in the morning. In the afternoon it's just too hot almost for exercise. I guess I'll have to figure out something and it may be inside. That's living in the south. Oh well. I guess it's just reverse seasons as up north:)

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  4. YS, I don't make sure they get exercise after naps, but they do. It is family time and right now that is almost always outside. So they do get exercise after nap time. An idea if you think you need some exercise in the afternoon is to do tickling or wrestling sessions after dinner. My kids love that.

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  5. I have a preschool age sleep problem. I wasn't sure where to ask this as I looked through the index but couldn't find anything related to this specifically, so I apologize if there is one! 🙂 My just 3-yr-old daughter wakes up 3-4 times a night to go potty. She has done this since the first night she stopped wearing diapers at night, which was about 2 months ago. Her bed time is 8:30, and I cut her off with drinking by 7 if not earlier. Last night, for example, she wasn't very tired at bedtime so she went potty 3 times before she fell asleep. I'm pretty sure that was more a way of stalling since it was just trickles each time she went. So even with completely emptying herself before she fell asleep, she still woke 3 times and went (around 1, 3:30, and 5:30am). I was thinking of putting her baby potty in her room so she can go and get right back in bed, but I'm not sure she'd do that. I feel like she'd still come in my room either way. As she's going potty, she's asking me to sleep with her in her bed, which I never do. But I'm not sure if that's one of the reasons she gets up so much–a way to get me to lay with her. I've only ever laid with her maybe twice and both times were because she was sick or something. She has never slept in our bed with us since she was born, but she always asks. So I was just wondering if you've dealt with this at all and had any advice. I'm also 9 weeks pregnant and, of course, super tired, so being up so much at night is extremely exhausting, especially because a lot of times I can't fall back asleep because I'm really hungry and then I have to go find something to eat, waking me up even more. And the times I'm not hungry, I'm laying there waiting for her to wake, so my quality of sleep is horrible even when she hasn't woken up! I'm nervous about this because it hasn't gotten any better since the first night of no diapers. I expected this to happen the first week or 2 while he got used to it, but it's been consistent for 2 months, and I'm afraid of what it's going to be like with a newborn! I know that's till 7 months away, but since I haven't seen any improvement thus far, I'm not confident it's going to get better by then. And then I'll really never get sleep with being up with both a newborn and my 3yo! And of course, they won't wake at the same times! 🙂 Oh, I've also been desperate enough for a good nights sleep that I have put a diaper back on her to sleep in, but she won't go in it anymore anyway. I was thinking maybe she wasn't ready for no diaper at night, but she won't pee in it anymore so that didn't help at all. Thank you!!

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  6. Stephanie,I have some advice for you if you are sure she has the bladder control to make it through the night.If you don't know for sure she can make it through the night, I would put a diaper on here and tell her she isn't allowed to get out of bed.OR Put the potty in her room. I did that with Kaitlyn for a while.If she has the control to make it through the night, then an idea is to do a "dreamfeed" type of thing but with potty instead. So right before you go to bed, you get her up and have her go potty, then put her back in bed. I would tell her she isn't allowed to get up in the night at all. I would probably put a potty in the room for emergencies.I would also tell her that if she can't make it through the night, you are going to have to put a diaper on her because it makes you super tired to get up several times a night. Good luck!

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