Diary of a Dad: Week 41 - No Nap Life

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No nap life isn’t for me, but I know it’s on the horizon. Those couple of hours of peace and quiet you get during the day when your baby sleeps is absolutely golden. You have the chance to do nothing (joking, there’s always loads to do) and just relax…I’m getting lethargic just thinking about it.

The problem is, your little one gets to a point when trying to get them to sleep becomes a challenge in the day (well, night too for us!) and eventually, the daytime nap is no more. It’ll be a sad day for me, but it has me thinking about everything I’m not going to be able to do during the two blissful hours of naptime.

Cleaning

It is a carousel of torture really isn’t it?! You clean and tidy, they mess it up, you clean and tidy, they mess it up and we go round and round and round. Naptime is the only time that I sit back and say - “Wow, this solace looks mint!” The inevitable onslaught of the post-nap zoomies puts a quick end to it, but having that tiny bit of time to just sort things is so helpful. There aren’t enough hours in the day if not.

I guess it’s a parent thing, but I also find you want to clean way more when you have kids. I don’t care about germs or any of that stuff, but I do feel more relaxed and generally calm if things are (or at least appear) in order.

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Work

Naptime is prime concentration-time for me. I can shift some serious work if I get my head down. It makes me realise just how unproductive I can be when I’m not on the clock. I guess it’s the concept of having a deadline of sorts that means I really hit it hard when I get going.

With that said, there is a serious issue when the beast arises before schedule. The short nap is a real work-killer. When I’m trying to cram a few hours work into just a short window, there’s nothing worse than that window being shrunk significantly, especially when the bin lorry rocks up and makes a racket.

Life admin

Insurance, bills, all that rubbish stuff takes ages to sort. The hours are a lot better now, you can contact companies in the evening, but who seriously wants to do that?!

Naptime is my ideal life admin time and I always feel super organised when I’ve done a bit during the week. Although it tends to cost me money, I do like the idea of things being sorted. It’s also incredible just how much you need to do when you are adulting properly - nobody tells you that shit in school.

Watching T.V

Now, I will admit, I do like to watch a bit of shit TV from time to time. Naptime is completely unadulterated shit TV time for me. I don’t have to watch the rubbish that my wife likes, I don’t have to watch Bluey on repeat, I can just kick back and get a few episodes of something totally mindless in. I will admit it’s rare, but oh my goodness - I’m going to miss being able to when naptime ends.

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