Once upon a time, in a period of my life when the most protected, coveted, dreamed about, if-you-ring-my-doorbell-please-be-prepared-to-explain-why-I-should-not-cut-you-out-of-my-life-forEVER hour of my day was . . . NapTime . . . I remember having a strange and baffling conversation with another young mother.
Our boys had played together for the entire morning, and in typical boy fashion had completely worn themselves out. My own 2yo was asleep before I left her driveway and didn’t wake up until the day was almost over.
A few days later, as a classic Young Mommy Conversation Starter, I asked if her son had also slept the day away after the morning of fun.
Her response:Â “He was really tired, but didn’t sleep long because he woke up when I went into his room to put laundry away.”
Ummmm, what???
Who, in her right mind, would EVER risk that precious naptime for laundry.
Laundry???
I’ve thought of that conversation a few times and until today, never had the slightest teensy-tiniest bit of comprehension about why any sane mother would do that.
Today, as I was folding clothes right out of the dryer . . . I thought again of this conversation.
I think I get it now. Sort of.Â
See, I finally understand that the key to keeping Laundry Day from becoming Laundry Week is folding clothes straight out of the dryer and putting them away immediately.
I know this. But it is still sooooo hard to do.
Hard to do when I don’t have a single excuse. I can’t even imagine not using the classic and so-logical-it-hurts excuse that I can’t open the bedroom door and break the sacred silence of a toddler’s naptime.
Sweet lady, but I’m thinking she might be on the other side of normal from me.
lol I dont think even laundry is worth waking a sleeping child. 🙂 Speaking of laundry, where do you think all those lost socks go?
I would set the basket or pile outside my little one’s room and for the love of GOD wait until she woke up to put the clothes away!!!
I was lucky. When my children were sleeping, they were (down/out?) for the count. NOTHING woke them up until they were READY to wake up! It was almost scary at times, I took them in for all sorts of tests, (including hearing tests, cos it seemed as though they could have been deaf!) However, nothing ever showed up as being wrong, so I finally decided to relax and enjoy it. Now, as young adults, they are pretty normal in their sleeping habits, although noises seldom wake them even now. I’m sure once my daughter has her baby, those days will be gone for her forever, and every slightest ‘peep’ will awaken her. She needs to really enjoy the next few months. (And, yes, I’ve warned her…LOL!)
I’m glad I’m not the only one that covets the naptime! I also, am ready to jump on anyone who dares to ring the doorbell during naptime. And laundry? Really?
A few months ago, a neighbor girl decided to ring the door bell to see if my daughter could play. I was trying to put the baby to sleep so I couldn’t answer the door (or I should say I didn’t want to risk it.) She rang the door bell TEN times. TEN! I was fuming. When I finally laid the baby down (successfully, even during all the ringing of the door bell), I went to answer the door bell and said as nicely as I could, “Yes?” And she said, “Finally! I’ve been waiting and waiting out here for someone to answer the door and no one came! I can see you guys are home because you’re car is on the driveway.” She sounded really irritated. And I said through a forced smile, “That’s because I was trying to put the baby to sleep.” And her face dropped and she said, “Oh.”
We didn’t see her for a few weeks after that.
Nothing is worth destroying the naptime! Not door bells or laundry. The child needs the rest, as does the Mama. 🙂
Yes, as I often told my kids . . . naptime is for me!
One of my neighbors would hang a “nap time” door knob hanger on her door to keep the kids from ringing her doorbell.
The neighborhood kids eventually learned not to ring our doorbell before about 10 on Saturday mornings after I’d stubble down in my PJ’s and inform them that the kids were still sleeping. (yes, we’re all night owls, not a morning person among us). Those repeated ringings were really annoying.
I trained my kids to sleep even if I vacuumed around them 😉
Nap time is sacred – NOTHING should interrupt that. My kids could sleep through a lot, but why risk it?
p.s. washing machines REALLY do eat socks. Ours was plugged and wouldn’t drain, so had to get the repairman in. It had a kid sock stuck in the pump motor. He said he sees that all the time, that baby socks go right through the motor, but sometimes a bigger one will get stuck.
Mystery solved! Thanks!
I agree with you and others – nap time is and has always been sacred. As my kids, sadly, grew out of naps, I didn’t realize how much I missed and needed that quiet time. I now insist on there being quiet time in the house in the afternoon. As far as laundry goes, I fold our laundry on the kitchen table. Then it needs to be put away in order for us to eat. Yes, there is always that temptation to put it in a basket (aka The Basket of Doom) for “later” but we really work at putting it away before meals. Though I do have to tell you, the bigger your family gets, you’re often stuck with it being “laundry week” anyway because there’s just too much. If you don’t do some every day it gets overwhelming – fast.
I would never have put laundry away with my son sleeping he slept so lightly I was afraid to breathe! However, my daughter slept like a rock so things were a bit easier with her. My son is now 9 and says he doesn’t need naps but on those rare afternoons he passes out on the couch I find something to do upstairs and let grumpy sleep! 🙂
I actually prefer to fold out of the dryer myself. I do go back in my daugther’s room after she is asleep to put away things and such but we use white noise so that goes a loooooong way in keeping any sounds I make drowned out. I highly recommend it. 🙂
In my house it laundry is never finished. It just moves in a circular fashion. I find when the clothes are done, it is time to wash linens, when the linens are done, it is time for towels or the dog throws up on the floor or someone pees the bed.
Five people live here and if I saved laundry for one day a week I would be too overwhelmed. I don’t fold out of the dryer becuase my laundry room is a claustrophobic, windowless room and folding irriates my Carpal Tunnels. If I park the baskets in front of the TV, hubby usually folds while watching TV. My house is not super messy (I am a recovering slob who is the daughter of a Clean Person–I know what to do as I grew up in it, I just don’t wanna….whine) But the one thing you will find piles of all over is clean laundry. I wash every day because I don’t want dirty stuff festering for days, but folding happens whenever. (and putting away happens when someone is out of clean unders in their drawer!)
I can relate to the “recovering slob daughter of a clean person” – my Mom ironed her sheets lol! With 5 kids in 10 years myself, I can relate to the constant laundry – we’ve gone through 3 washers and 4 dryers in 20 years lol. It wasn’t until a few of them went off to college that I started folding from the dryer – it was just more manageable. But when they were all younger, I set up a routine so I wasn’t overwhelmed by baskets of laundry all around the family room. The kids helped fold. When a clean load came up, I sorted it by person. Each child(from about age 4 and up) was given their clothes to fold and put away. Even the 2 and 3 yo could fold wash clothes, dish towels, match socks. I had to let go of any notion of precision folding lol. But I showed them simple folding (even just in half or quarters) so they could do this themselves. It saved my back, wrists, etc. and they learned to pitch in and be responsible for their own clothes and everyone had some clean clothes in their room (the ideal was in the drawers – some were better at that than others lol). Bigger stuff like sheets and heavy bath towels could still be done by your hubby 🙂
thanks for the tips! All of my kids put away their laundry now–I need to get them to work on folding it. (actually, one day I watched my daughter put away her laundry and the first step was “dump all of the freshly folded clothes on the floor in a big pile” so maybe I should just skip folding and sort into individual baskets for them and just fold my own stuff!
My mom ironed her t-shirts and would sometimes vacuum twice a day. I think that I am doing well by vacuuming every second one!
NEVER wake a sleeping child (or pick up a happy child out of a playpen, etc) lol . I concur, laundry day should stay a DAY, but you can fold out of the dryer and leave the child’s clothes outside their door until they awake ON THEIR OWN. Besides your own sanity, children need their full course of sleep to be happy and healthy.
I take the clothes to my room to be folded. And I don’t mind FOLDING and putting away my clothes and my fiance’s clothes while our son is sleeping, but I won’t put his way. His will sit on the bed until he gets up, then we get his clothes and we put them away. (though I’m really trying to keep from RE-folding his laundry when he puts them in his drawers. (he’s almost 4.) But to do anything that would disrupt naptime. OOOOhhhh noooooooo! Not this Momma! That’s my time of quiet. I won’t even watch tv during that time. And now that he might or might not nap depending on the day, he STILL has to lay down for 1 hour of quiet time.
I turned off the tv during naptime too! my son has just transitioned out of a daily nap so I’m finding it very difficult to keep my sanity these days (also have an older daughter and an infant) but the rare days when the older two actually fall asleep at the same time in the afternoon as the baby… This momma does a happy dance. And then i take a nap too lol. NOTHING gets done during naptime!
Totally like you – nothing could bring me to open the door of a napping child! What’s the prob with putting it outside the bedroom door and then putting it away when you open the door to get the child up? That’s my solution.
Last week was such a crazy week that I just “did it all” on Saturday. “It all” ended up being six loads. And I usually just do two! (Granted, most of that was sheets and pool towels.)
And sleeping kiddos are NOT MESSED WITH. Unless of course, I’m trying to wake them up so they’ll actually sleep at night! I just pile the clothes outside their door. Then it’s their problem to deal with, LOL.
And I have at least another load or two waiting for me when I get home right now.
What is this thing that you people are talking about, a nap? From a very early age my children would stay awake all day and only sleep 8hrs at night. The only “naps” I get are in the car on long trips. Then they wake up as soon as we arrive. I like to say my children don’t believe in sleep. Me, I could sleep 12 hours a night!
Honestly, as the mother of a two year old who barely sleeps, I would NOT risk nap time for laundry. Ever. Perhaps you don’t remember the horrors of severe sleep deprivation 🙂
My children are grown now but I would have never risked waking them
to put laundry away. But I did learn early in my marriage that it was a pain to go move a load of laundry from the washer to the dryer to find a
load that was left and now needed to be redried with a wet towel to get the wrinkles out of them. So I started having a laundry day and that was what I focused on all day until everything was put away. I think my children learned a valuable lesson about laundry from helping with this as they got older.
At my house, each person (there are 6 of us) has a shoe box sized white basket with his or her name on it – the underwear and socks go there.
Each person also has a white hook on my laundry room door – their hung clothes go there.
The people in my house (ages 6 to 38) pick up their clothes as they pass the laundry room, and take them to their own bedroom. They bring down the dirty clothes and sort their own too – white, colored – and I do a load when the basket is full. In the washer when I go to work, dry and fold when I come home.
It works for me – I have a laundry week, but it’s not all consuming.
and this is why my kids’ clothing was stored in my closet until they outgrew napping. 🙂
Yep, this is why my youngest daughters stuff pretty much stayed in a laundry basket for the last 3 years. I always folded during nap and never got hers put away. I started just setting the basket on her dresser some where during the week and we learned to live that way. I only get 3 nap times a week because of work so that time was GOLDEN! Unfortunately, nap time has just come to an end and now I feel like I have a lot more laundry I am obligated to put away. No more excuse!
I pretty much have always kept on top of my laundry but I NEVER interrupted my kids’ nap time to put laundry away. NEVER. And I NEVER would. That’s just crazy!!! Plus kids need their naps. It makes them happier children.
When my grandkids are here during naptime, I sit at my desk and work so I don’t wake them up. Their rooms are near the kitchen so I stay out of the kitchen! I want them to sleep because they’re happier kids when they get a good nap.
Nap time is important for everyone. No I would not go into the room of nap time with a 10 foot poll!!!
My son slept so well during naps (and still does) that I would outright vacuum his room when he was sleeping, and I put away laundry after bedtime every night almost. 🙂 Im lucky, my humans never wake up.
This mother has lost her mind. I would never ever wake my child when napping. I do usually do laundry during naps & we put clothes away when he gets up. My own clothes almost never get put away because of my closet being messsed up & my schedule but I am a stickler about putting my sons away. I do a load of laundry a day because I can’t stand dirty laundry lying around, ever. I call it the curse of the potty training toddler. I make an effort daily to do one load & then about every 3rd day there is no laundry at all. Waking a child is just asking for trouble though, is she nuts?
When mine were little naptime was sacred. No door bells, phone calls, or putting laundry away. I might be doing laundry but the stack that went into THAT room could just sit on a table or couch until the baby woke up. Now, if they had slept for a very very long time and I was worried they would not be able to sleep at bedtime if they did not wake up soon then I would make a little noise by going about the day and if they were ready they would wake up. If they were so tired that didn’t wake them up I figured they needed the sleep. I didn’t want a crank on my hands the rest of the day!
Nope. She’s straight-up crazy.