It's morning and my preschooler, Eli, is sick with a fever and cold-like symptoms. Instead of talking nonstop and playing, he's asleep in my arms on the couch. I stroke his hair and listen to him sigh while his chest rises and falls. I have a mile-long to-do list, but I could stay here all day.
I didn't always feel this way.
When Eli was 3 months old, I was attending my local moms group when the conversation veered towards naps. Not the newborn kind that happen anytime, anywhere in 20-minute spurts, but the graduated version that involve baby sleeping at somewhat predictable times.
A more predictable sleep schedule sounded especially appealing because I was in real need of some “me” time and beyond desperate to get it. During his first three months, Eli would only nap attached to me in a carrier or sling. And when he was awake, I was either nursing, soothing or changing him. The other babies in my moms group seemed to be falling into a routine, so I thought we should give it a try as well. Since he wasn't a newborn anymore, he should be ready, right?
Establishing a nap routine started off well enough. I'd snuggle Eli and read him a few books, then sway him in my arms until he was drowsy (but still awake!), place him gently in his crib and tiptoe out of the room, gleeful at the chance to enjoy a few minutes of solitude.
The challenge came exactly 30 minutes later, when Eli would inevitably wake up screaming. I could never get him back to sleep in his crib after that, but according to my self-devised schedule and all of the sample schedules I'd seen online, his nap was supposed to last another hour. If it ended now, the timing for the rest of the day would be thrown off and everything would be ruined.
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So I did what I had to do. I took him out of the crib, plopped into the chair in his room and let him sleep in my arms for an hour while I sat in total darkness. Sometimes, if I could manage to get one hand free and had my laptop nearby, I'd try to eke out a few sentences for a story I was working on. But usually I just sat there.
This happened during every nap, every day, for a month. It was winter, so the days were short and cold; I was living in perpetual darkness, and not just literally. I felt like there was nothing to look forward to, just an endless stretch of boring, lonely days that all looked exactly the same. When I'd vent to family members or friends, they'd either say that I should enjoy every minute of it because the next thing I knew Eli would be in college or I should stop trying to force him into a schedule.
But I couldn't enjoy those moments because I felt like a prisoner, and also like a total failure because I couldn't get my baby to nap. And even though this routine was completely self-imposed (and I now know that many babies have unpredictable sleep routines, especially at 3 months), at the time, it seemed like the only option.
If I could just hold out for long enough, Eli would eventually fit the perfectly timed schedule I had created. In my overly anxious, tunnel-vision postpartum state, abandoning that schedule would be like giving up any chance of sanity. Even though I definitely didn't feel sane. I just felt broken.
But here's the thing I hadn't yet learned: For better or worse, children are constantly changing. Whether your little one is going through a sleep regression, nursing strike or throwing food, that phase will eventually end and you’ll move on to the next stage.
That’s exactly what happened with Eli's naps. When he was about 5 months old, he just started napping longer, and soon he was sleeping independently in his crib at predictable times. I give myself credit for continuing to follow a calming naptime routine, but the rest was all him. His little brain and body were just ready to make that shift. And I couldn't have been happier to finally have those free moments to myself.
The cuddles didn't end there, of course. But as Eli stopped napping on me, then stopped needing me to get from point A to point B, then stopped nursing, he started to become more independent, and the opportunities to just hold him disappeared. These days, unless he's sick, the only time he sits on my lap for more than a minute or two is when we read books before bed.
As you might've guessed, it's my favorite part of the day.
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