The Privilege of Being Nap Trapped

Middle of the night jumbled thoughts while holding tight to every fleeting moment.

It’s the early hours of the morning. The sun isn’t set to rise for a while. I lay quietly as I feel the rhythmic rise and fall of each breath my baby takes on my chest. Tiny delicate fingers are curled over a loose strand of my hair. Milk dribbles out of her slightly parted lips onto my shirt. It will probably stain if I don’t wash it right away. But I don’t mind.

This thought reminds me of one of my toddler’s favorite books. In the end, the two main characters (a tumbleweed and a cactus) become stuck together. They don’t mind, because the cactus learns that it’s better to be stuck in a hug than stuck all alone. If I was stuck in this position — preferably with both children at once — I wouldn’t mind.

My toddler is at that age where cuddles are only wanted before nap and bedtime, when he doesn’t feel well, or at the exact moment I get his baby sister to latch. Everything else in between is go, go, go. However, when I do get to experience the “toddler flop,” as my husband who watches too many Instagram Reels calls it, I savor every single moment.

I have a hard time pinpointing the exact moment when he transformed from a chubby-faced baby into a playful toddler. Some people say the switch into toddlerhood is when they start walking, some say it’s when they turn one. I think for me, the switch happened sometime when I hit my second trimester with his baby sister.

We had started night weaning as my milk supply significantly dropped, probably due to the fact that my morning sickness was so severe. It’s apparently hard on one’s body to make a baby and produce milk when you can barely keep any food or water down. I would often rock him back to sleep in the middle of the night. As my belly grew bigger (I swear I started showing the minute I saw two pink lines with this second baby), I would have to shift the belly over to the side to make room for him.

Baby girl had just started to produce those cute kicks that felt like little pokes from the outside. Those gentle pokes quickly turned into large jabs later on, but at this moment they were sweet and tiny. As I was making room for my wiggle worm of a 14 month old, baby girl decided to poke the side of my belly where her big brother was resting. He of course gave my belly a shove in his sleepy state, but it was at that second that I realized that he was no longer my tiny baby. A new baby was coming and he was about to feel so big in comparison.

Being a mother of two, to a tiny baby and a toddler, has been my greatest joy. When I think about all those sleepy cuddles, the wet kisses, the chubby hands curled around my finger, I feel like I am in heaven. But supposedly, according to pop culture, I am in hell.

If it wasn’t for multiple posts circulating Substack in response to the infamous interview¹, I would have had no idea that it even existed as I am neither cool nor online. This essay isn’t about that (the interview, nor that I am not cool). However, it makes me sad to see that motherhood is seen as something that is soul-crushing and will dim the light in a mother’s eyes. That it is too hard and takes women away from their careers, their lives. They are left as being just “a mom.”

I am not just “a mom” though. I am a home, safety, nurture, comfort. My reward is unconditional love in the form of wonder and awe through their eyes, the laughter that fills the room after some game my toddler made up that I don’t know the rules of, the weight of their bodies curled up after a long day, their innocence as all they know in this world is tenderness, warmth, and joy.

I feel this insane amount of luck that I get to see the world through their point of view. I sometimes get caught up in the “educating” aspect and making sure all of those milestones are met. I lose sight that some days it is me who is the learner, rather than the teacher. I learn how to slow down, how to be curious, how to create without constraints.

At the end of the day, with their bellies full of nourishment and minds full of imagination, I tuck them into bed. Some nights though, my toddler needs one extra hug that turns into an hour or the baby falls asleep mid-suckle, and I get to enjoy watching every rising breath, study every curl, count every eyelash. I burn these images in my mind as time is fleeting. But for now, I get to hold on tight.

That is the privilege of being nap trapped.

1. If you’re like me and you live under a rock, I am referring to Chappel Roan’s Call Her Daddy interview. She was quoted as saying “All of my friends who have kids are in hell. I don’t know anyone who’s happy and has children at this age… anyone who has light in their eyes.”