I knew going into the day it was going to be tough. I was hoping Little Girl would nap going to or coming from the birthday — a good 30 minute drive from our house. But it wasn’t to be. She was too excited on the way there. She kept talking about how she was going to sing Happy Birthday to her friend. She was too excited on the way home, too. She knew she was going to see our friends’ daughter, who she loves like a sister.

So we get to their house and Little Girl is a lunatic. She’s climbing and sliding and tossing puzzles. She’s playing chase around the house with her little friend. She’s not listening. And then she slid off the couch yet again when I had already told her several times to stop. Thunk! Right into my head. I was so angry. I picked her up and put her on a time out. I wasn’t really angry at her. (Well, maybe a little.) I was mostly mad at myself.

I should have skipped the dinner. I should have stayed home with the baby and let her go to sleep. Or I should have, when I got a birthday invitation for 3 p.m. — right in the middle of our usual 2 until 5 p.m. naptime — declined with an explanation and thanks. Or I should have begged off of the boat earlier in the day and put her in for a noon nap. I could have done several smart things. But instead I went with the stupid option: Do everything and the heck with the nap. I had to have it all. I had to push it. And the result was a toddler and a mommy who were both just DONE.

After the head bonking accident, I chased Little Girl around for a few more minutes until I realized that I was just not having fun. She was into everything. She was clumsy and falling into things. It was time to leave. So I picked up Little Girl and left my husband and Big Girl there. My friend graciously offered to drive both of them home. She was asleep in her carseat by the time we rounded their corner. She transferred beautifully into the crib — she was THAT tired. She woke up briefly as I changed her into her jammies, but went right back to sleep. I think that’s where I am headed, too…

How do you handle packed weekends? What would you have done with so many invitations in one day? Any suggestions?

Yes, she will sleep in her crib like a champ. (Aside from that one jumping out and breaking her clavical bone issue!) I put her in, give her Blankie and she’s out. Day or night. She’s fairly okay with pack and plays as long as she’s tired. However, she’s not the type of kid to nap outside of a crib or crib-like device. And she’s not one to delay gratification. There’s a party at 4? You can bet she’s going to have trouble falling asleep.

That’s what happened yesterday. We were invited to a block party. We made the mistake of telling her. Yes, she stayed in her crib, but we don’t think she slept. Today we had plans to go to a friend’s pool. We stopped at my in-law’s first for brunch. Around 1:30 we headed out to my friend’s taking a 30 minute drive. Little Girl, Blankie in hand, fell asleep about 15 minutes into the drive. Knowing she wouldn’t transfer, and that she desperately needed the nap, Big Girl and my husband snuck out of the car.

And now here I sit listening to Little Girl breathing, windows up, air conditioning on. Writing this post. I never thought I’d see the day. Big Girl always bent to our plans. Today, my plans went out the window because Little Girl’s plans included an unscheduled nap. I’m sure I’ll get into the pool soon. Right?

A friend just e-mailed an article to me and a few other friends. The Washington Post has a story written about some time management stats out of the University of Maryland. According to John Robinson, a researcher and time management guru, moms and dads have plenty of free time. More than 30 hours a week, to be exact.

I’ll bet a lot of parents would balk at that number, as the Washington Post writer did, too. How could that be? We all work so hard. Kids make us crazy. Housework, bills, yard work. Where does 30 hours come from? You know what? I think Robinson is right. Even in this house, where we work really hard, we have downtime.

I go to the gym. I go to yoga. I see friends. I’m in a book club. I read. I watch television. I go to playdates. I take my little one to classes. I play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. I read blogs — lots of them. I write this blog. I read to my girls. I play with my girls. I laugh with them. I am on a bowling league. I go to volunteer meetings at my local beach club. I go out for coffee or dinner with my husband. We play board games. We have our alone time. All those things add up in terms of hours. Just last night I went to an hour of spin and, when yoga was canceled, ended up meeting two friends at a local coffee house. I got home and watched an hour of TV with my husband. That was almost five hours of downtime. Granted, I stay up way too late, and I work a lot, but I’m still getting in plenty of me-time.

If you take the time to read through the entire Washington Post article you see that the author, who was resistant to the idea in the beginning, slowly comes to realize that she has more time than she thinks she does. When she first starts out, some of the folks in the story — including the author herself — bemoan the fact that a good portion of so-called “leisure time” is actually spent exercising or spending time with kids, which doesn’t always feel like leisure. But as the story unfolds the folks that she interviews help her to realize that to-do lists often don’t need to get done, and leisure time is what we make of it. The author wrote that she, as a working mom, did actually have close to those 30 hours of time — she had about 28 — but that it didn’t feel like leisure because she was too busy worrying and thinking about other things that needed to get done. “Even during a so-called leisure activity, mothers are more likely to be worried about something, planning what to pull together for dinner or strategizing. Sociologists call that ‘contaminated time,’ ” she quotes Rachel Connelly, a labor economist at Bowdoin College in Maine as saying.

I think this story is pretty interesting, and hopefully something that will give readers hope. As someone who has always been selfish and self-centered when it comes to taking me-time, I can say it helped me re-discover the fact that it’s a wonderful thing that I do take that extra time for myself. That it’s important. That it helps me feel like me and be a better journalist, wife, mother, and friend. How about you? what have you done for yourself lately? What do you count among your 30 hours of weekly leisure time?

Some of this sleepiness is genetic, I’m sure. My husband can sleep anywhere. Before we had kids he would sleep in on Saturdays until 2 or 3 p.m. I’d go out, do a cardio class, take yoga or Pilates, hit a karate class, go food shopping and come home and wake him up for the day. Thank goodness the kids take after Daddy. If they took after me — someone who stays up until 1 or 2 every night, I’d be losing my mind. Genetics aside, there are some things we do to keep them on these amazing schedules. I’m going to skip the tips you always hear — setting a routine, playing soft music, making their tummies full and warm — and concentrate on the things you may have missed.

1. Get rid of the monitor. When I had Katelyn, we had a monitor. It drove us nuts. We’d hear every sniff and snuffle. I’d go in to see if she was okay, and I’d wake her in the process. Once I got rid of the monitor, she slept much better. Made perfect sense. All of us — babies included — wake up several times each night as we pass from stage to stage of sleep. By running when the baby made a little noise, or even let out a cry or two, we weren’t letting her learn how to soothe herself back to sleep.
2. Keep it dark. Light helps our bodies awaken us. It’s one of the reasons we are awake during the day and sleep at night. You can help babies sleep longer and go down for naps easier by installing blackout shades, which will bring evening dusk into your nursery even at 11 a.m.
3. Nap them — even if they don’t want to nap. My very sage pediatrician Dr. Ilyse Nayor once told me that every child needs to learn to be alone. And I should put my daughter in for a nap even if she didn’t want to sleep. We followed her advice, and to this day I can tell Katelyn to go into her room and take some quiet time. There’s good research that says daytime naps help children learn, and since all babies need up to 16 hours of sleep each day, if you put them in regularly, eventually, they are going to fall asleep.
   
4. Don’t let them sleep in your bed. I know there is a very strong co-sleeping contingent online, however when I look at the research I am convinced that co-sleeping isn’t in anyone’s best interest. Safety aside (the American Academy of Pediatrics has come out against co-sleeping), babies who sleep with parents get less sleep than their peers, and the affects of co-sleeping stay with them until they are school age, according to one study.
5. Avoid caffeine. This might seem like a crazy tip. Who would give a baby or a child caffeine, right? But well-meaning parents who let kids have a chocolate bar, chocolate ice cream or cookies or a sip of soda or hot cocoa are setting their kids up for potential sleep issues. All of the above have caffeine. And while a cup of cocoa might not bother a 135-pound mommy, it’s going to affect a 25-pound toddler. You can also inadvertently give your infant caffeine via breast milk and, since small babies can’t clear it from their systems all that well, it builds up over time keeping them awake. Bottom line: keep caffeine to a minimum to help your baby drift off to sleep better.
6. Keep things cool — but not too cool. When we fall asleep, our bodies cool down. If the room is too warm — warmer than 68 degrees — it takes our bodies longer to cool, and it takes us longer to fall asleep. Babies have it tougher because they can’t self-regulate temperature when they are small, so we need to be careful that they are not too cold or too warm when we put them into their cribs.
7. Don’t smoke — or let kids breathe second-hand smoke. The nicotine in cigarette smoke disrupts babies’ sleeping habits. And yes, it will get to your child through your breast milk, so if you’re still smoking, please stop.
8. Keep the sleep location consistent. If you let your baby sleep in the car — or pack-and-play or stroller — during the day, they may not sleep as well at night in their crib, according to a study. Don’t get crazy if you can’t put your baby down in her crib every day, but whenever possible, let her sleep where she’s used to sleeping at night.

Do you have a sleep strategy that I’ve missed? How long did it take you to sleep train your child? Are you a fan of crying it out? (We are…) Tell me about it.