Confession: I still sleep when the baby sleeps

Everybody advises new moms to sleep when the baby sleeps.  I remember one such woman who gave me this advice, while I was still pregnant. 

"A lot of moms feel guilty sleeping when the baby sleeps," she said. 

"Why?!" I asked.

"Well, a lot of moms feel like they should be getting something else done."

"That's silly," I said.  Little did I know that when you birth a child, that giant void in your uterus is filled with all-consuming, irrational guilt.  That's probably the reason your stomach is never flat again. 

I admit that I didn't feel totally guilty sleeping when the baby slept as a newborn.  Exhaustion tends to trump guilt.  But now that my son is 20 months old, I feel guilty that I'm still taking naps. 

It seems pathetic for a grown woman to need to take a nap.  I feel selfish and unproductive for not using the time for laundry or cleaning or making a scrapbook or something.  I am ashamed to admit to my fellow moms that I take naps. 

I have all kinds of ways of justifying my naps.  Maybe I didn't sleep well the night before.  Or it's a dark, cold day and it only seems logical to nap.  Or I got woken up too early by my son, and for crying out loud, I never get to sleep in or get that weekend recovery time that my childless counterparts do. 

The thing is, up until now, this was really only an issue on the weekends.  I worked full-time, and two days a week of napping didn't seem like all that big of a deal.  But I quit my job, and now I'm about to embark on the scary and exciting world known as stay-at-home motherhood.  Can I really take a nap every single day?

The ridiculous part of this whole napping guilt thing is that I really don't need to justify my naps to anybody.  Maybe I feel a need to justify them to myself, but that's only because I've created this illusion in my mind that other moms are out there mocking and ridiculing me for my slothfulness.  And quite frankly, I think a lot of us are taking on too much because we perceive other women judging us.  Think of the woman who insists upon cleaning her own house when she could afford cleaning help, because she doesn't want other women thinking she's lazy.  Think of the woman who thinks she has to work full-time from home without childcare.  There are a lot of women out there doing a lot of things in the name of avoiding judgment from other women. 

And why?!  Why do we feel like we need to do everything and never take a break?  Is there somebody out there who really sits around her dinner table and says, "I admire So-and-So because she works full-time, cleans her own house, and never takes a nap"?  And on the flip side, is there somebody sitting around a dinner table saying, "So-and-So is so lazy because I heard she took a nap"? 

So, I'm coming clean.  I sleep when the baby sleeps.  He's not really even a baby anymore, and I still sleep.  My name is Shannon, and I take naps. 

Shannon also blogs at Boringtown's Closed.  This is an original Chicago Moms Blog Post.