In memory of nap time, which left my life too soon…
When you have a baby, naps take on a previously unimaginable significance in your life. In your pre-parenting life, naps were a rare Sunday afternoon treat, after a Saturday night spent clubbing or doing a movie marathon or whatever other fun things childless people do on Saturday nights that I no longer remember ever having done. Sure, maybe you gently snored through afternoon lectures in college. Or maybe you did covert power naps behind your computer post-lunch in office. But the nap was never an integral part of your life, the thing you planned your entire day around. The thing you looked forward to from the moment you woke up in the morning.
All that changes the day your newborn comes into your life. When you’re first told that you should “sleep when the baby sleeps”, you baulk at the idea. Nap at 11 o’clock in the morning? It seems so… wrong. But after that second or third sleepless night, you learn your lesson. If you don’t catch some zzz’s when your baby is napping, you’re going to unravel at the seams (well, you’re probably going to unravel anyway, but the occasional nap slows the process slightly).
As baby gets older, nap time settles into a (sort of) pattern. Morning nap and afternoon nap… a blessed hour or hour and a half each of peace and quiet, when you actually get a bit of time to yourself. You can shower uninterrupted. Catch up on waiting chores. Or go on Facebook and watch cat videos (it’s all about priorities). If the night was bad, you might even grab some shut-eye yourself. In other words, naptime is a stay-at-home mom’s idea of happy hour.
Once you enter the toddler years, things start getting rocky. You’re now deeply attached to the idea of naps, but your toddler has different ideas. The first thing to go is the morning nap (sigh), when your 15 or 16 month old decides she’s done wasting her precious time sleeping pre-noon. You then centre all your hopes on the afternoon nap. When your two year old starts resisting that as well, it means all-out war. You know she needs it. She knows she needs it. But she’s not going to give in without a fight. A daily afternoon battle of wills follows. There are days when you lose (these are not good days). But most of the time she eventually nods off, because she’s exhausted and can’t really cope without the snooze.
The real trouble begins when your toddler begins to out-grow the nap altogether. If you’re lucky, that won’t be until she’s four or older. If you’re not (like me), that happens around the age of three. The signs have been there for the last couple of months, though I’ve tried desperately to ignore them. The naps have been getting shorter and the timings more erratic. The battles have gotten bloodier, and I’ve been staggering away vanquished more often. Well, now it’s official. She no longer needs a nap during the day. She doesn’t sleep, and she’s just fine and dandy. Doesn’t even get cranky later in the evening. It’s done and dusted. Fini. Khatam. No more naps for my toddler.
And so, I write this article in memory of those blissful islands of daytime quietude I’ve enjoyed these past three years. When I actually got to post a blog entry or finish cooking or read list after pointless list on Buzzfeed. Or when I closed the curtains and pulled up the covers and enjoyed a sinfully delicious afternoon nap myself.
Ah, nap time… I will miss you. You were good to me. You swept unexpectedly into my life, and in this short time, you’ve become special to me. Now, all too soon, it is time for you to go. I wish I could hold on, but let go I must.
Farewell to you, my dear.
TIPS:
- Hard as it is, allow the progression from two naps to (sigh) no naps to happen naturally.
- You know your child best; watch for signs that she’s getting enough sleep.
- When it’s time to bid adieu to nap time, let go. Accept that it’s the end of an era
‘Toddler Talk’ is a weekly column that appears in The Hindu Metroplus on Tuesdays.
Divya Kumar 