How do I really "Turn Off" my iPad for charging?

Question

Here's my problem;
I understand I can charge my iPad from my lower wattage iPod (or accessory) charger if it is fully "off" not just "asleep" and this does work.
When I hold the power button on top of the iPad down, it goes to the "slide to power off screen" as it should. What happens then, is if I plug in my charger (after I power off), the little apple pops up in the center of the screen and then the screen comes back on and says "not charging" at the top.
I go through the hold the power button down process again and the screen shuts off. Is it now actually off? It seems that sometimes when I power back up, the iPad has charged and other times it hasn't.
Also, sometimes when I do this 2nd "power down", the screen will go blank and a second later a battery charge meter will pop up in the center of the screen showing battery remaining and then the screen goes blank again! Is it off now or just asleep? Usually I do another power cycle at this point to be sure it is off.
It just seems that to have to go through 3 "power off" cycles to be sure the iPad is off and charging is kinda excessive. It's a pain to lug around the iPad charger when I have accessory chargers at work, in my car, at home, basically every place I go.

Answer 1

I get the same thing, it's very frustrating. Whilst charging I hold down the button on the top, slide the red slider to power off, and about 5 seconds after it turns itself back on again.
This must be a software problem that will hopefully resolved in OS4 when we see it.
It makes a lot of sense to me to wish to power-off rather than sleep during charging. Surely in sleep wifi, GPS etc will be 'scanning' and slowing the charging process.
The best fix-ish I could offer is to turn on Airplane (for some reason I pronounce this air-o-plane, I wonder why?) and then sleep.
Either way it seems to take forever to charge my iPad and I feel iPad separation anxiety during this!