The Art of Napping

I spent 20 of my 30 years in school. Clearly on some level, I enjoyed school. Yet the past year has shown me a startling gap in our curriculum. School prepared me for so many professions I was never likely to pursue full-time -- medicine, law, nuclear physics -- and never prepared me for the one I was most likely to become: a parent. Society provides abundant proof that parenting is not all instinctive. And any baby store will tell you that parenting is infinitely complicated, requiring lots of equipment. Thankfully, I learned a lot from my own parents. But now I'm on the job, and there's still a lot to figure out.

Which brings me to the art of napping. One would think sleeping is pretty straightforward: You get tired. You lie down. You wake up. You get tired. You lie down. Etc. No sir -- Not when you're 6 months old. Noah's nap schedule was erratic when he was in daycare every other day, usually getting 2-4 naps/day of 30-45 minutes each. This presented a dilemma for his mother: Should she stick with the catnaps or were they an unhealthy habit?

I read and talked to other parents about it, made a few adjustments, and gradually Noah cleared up the debate. Since I've been home full-time, he has moved to the textbook nap schedule (2 naps of 1.5-2 hours each plus a late afternoon catnap). It's lovely. He's more rested and predictable, and I get real blocks of time for other projects. But now that we've found our rhythm, the question is how much to protect it.

Do I let him sleep in?
Do I wake him up early to go meet a friend?
Do I skip a nap to go out? If so, which one?
Do I keep him out late to finish an event?
How many days can I mess with the schedule and still go back to it?

I've realized that unless you're home all day everyday, napping is an art. So far, I'm still in the euphoria of a new-and-improved schedule, so I probably err on the side of letting it influence my plans too much. I hear myself saying no because "Noah needs to nap" a little too often. Yet there's some deep compulsion in me that wants him to get his naps every day - that hates to see bags form under his eyes, that doesn't want to wake him from a peaceful slumber, that doesn't want him to revert to 30 minute catnaps all day. That side is currently winning. But I don't want it to take over. I don't want to become the rigid mom with a demanding baby. And I don't want other priorities to suffer. There must be a balance.

So each day, I learn a little more what that balance looks like for us. For example, just in the last couple of weeks I've learned...
1. I don't want to let Noah's naps impede our church attendance.
2. He can miss a nap, but plan time to make up for it later that day.
3. If an event is at our house, I don't have to worry about his schedule.
4. If I mess up one day, we can recover the next.
5. If we have more kids, I'll likely look back on this post and laugh, so I might as well relax now.