Nap Time Achievements

Nap Time Achievements
Stacey Greenberg

Nap time is a charged phrase for me that elicits many feelings. Anxiety: “Will he nap?” Relief: “Ahhh. He’s sleeping.” Panic: “Can I finish x, y, and/or z before he wakes up?” I hardly ever nap when he naps. Sometimes, I nurse him to sleep and doze off for a few minutes, but I almost always wake up with a start after five or 10 minutes. Sometimes, I can’t even doze off, because I’m already thinking about things I need/want to do while he’s sleeping. This got me thinking about what other moms do when their children are napping, so I asked a few. Here are some of my favorite responses:

1. Stand in front of the open fridge and eat without being watched.
2. Poop without being rushed (or watched!).
3. Mentally prioritize all household chores to be accomplished while baby sleeps then plop on sofa and watch “Regis and Kelly” or “Trading Spaces.”
4. Log onto the Internet and read email and mama boards. Plan to respond at length but rarely manage to do so.
5. Pass out cold.
6. Obsessively count down the minutes I have left until he wakes up again, as if they were my last minutes on earth.
-Sarah Diegl

1. Clean up the carnage (toys, finger paint, food, shoes, socks, pots, pans...) he has left in every room of the house, so that when he wakes up, he can do it all over again!
2. Shower, extremely hot water, as long as I can stand it...usually fantasizing that I'm somewhere else: a beach, a mountain top, a day spa.
3. Make lunch, his and mine, while trying to think of some fun thing we can do later.
4. Talk to friends on the phone (mostly about our kids and hubbies) laughing A LOT or whenever possible...crying sometimes.
5. Send email, surf online.
6. Read a few pages of something I'm really interested in.
-Beth Myler

Nothing particularly Olympian. Eat, do laundry, email, make hand painted greeting cards, sometimes sleep a bit, sometimes wash my hair, talk on the phone, pick up the house, research all things baby on the web, and, just now, am finally beginning to write again.
-Peggy Ann Sinclair

Have sex
Bathe
Power clean
Nap
-Ashley Harper

1. Pray. (That she won't wake up before I can get at least one thing done.)
2. Everything and anything but take a nap myself, which is what I ultimately end up wishing I would have done.
-Marlinee Iverson

I watch episodes of “A Baby Story” on TLC that I tape during the week. I love watching babies being born and get a laugh thinking back to a time when I couldn't even stand talking about delivery. Now I can watch it and marvel at how all these different types of women give birth. I've probably watched over 200 episodes of “A Baby Story” in the past 18 months!
-Margaret Griffith

My daughter takes nice, long, regular naps (unless something is off in some baby-world cycle that we know nothing about) usually in the early afternoon. The first thing I do is to fly around the house picking up anything baby-related so that we have the maximum amount of clean time before she gets up and, seeing how I have thwarted her destruction attempts, starts all over. The first thing my husband does, if he's home, is to sit on the couch and watch TV, telling me "Don't pick up. That's what Diana (the nanny/housekeeper) is for.” Then, I usually get online and do some combination of work/play stuff. I also might do some cooking or general organizing. Not too exciting, but it’s very nice to have that break during the day.
-Sarah Banerjee