Nap time is a trial without daycare

After making the decision to stay home full time with my son, lots of thoughts were swimming around in my head.

I had scattered lists of all the household tasks I wanted to accomplish. I really do need to catch up on his baby book, seeing as he's well past his second birthday and I don't think I have even made it to his first. Whenever possible I had more outside time and daily walks on the agenda. Keeping up better with even mundane tasks like vacuuming and dusting seemed exciting. Being able to plan meals and grocery trips better had huge appeal.

For all the positive and exciting things to think about, however, a heavy cloud hung over all my notions of how wonderful our time at home would be: Nap time.

You know the saying that kids know what they can get away with from certain people? It's true. They're smart little boogers. They can sniff out a grandparent who has a weakness for sharing otherwise forbidden cookies and candy. They know which parent to go for with certain requests.

This is true, even with toddlers.

When my son was in day care full time, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall to observe just how they did it. In one room with as many as 16 kids, they all willingly comply to lying down on cots and taking a nap -- on a daily basis, at that.

When my son was an infant and right on through, I never had a caregiver tell me that my son didn't nap just fine.

At home, it's a different story.

Since typically we are only even home at nap time on weekends or vacations, it's been much harder to find a routine that works. Add to that that our weekends are full of running around to do all our errands, grocery shopping and anything fun that we can squeeze in, and it's even more rare that we're home at 1 or 2 p.m. on the dot to enforce a nap time regimen.

As my son has gotten older, nap times at home have become mostly nonexistent, and when they do happen, it's usually in the car seat while we're driving from one chore to the next.
Yet, somehow, magically, back at day care every week he was right back on track with his daily naps.

Some kids can do without naps. For my son, if either of us were to enjoy our newfound time at home, we were going to have to find a way to fit in some sleep. No nap means total grouch from the time the sun sets until the time he goes to bed.

So, over a few weekend days, my husband determined that he'd get our son to nap, and he did. It became a ritual of reading books in the rocking chair until he fell asleep and then carefully placing him onto his little toddler mattress on the floor in his room. It worked like a charm, for my husband, but when I tried it, no dice.

Thankfully, this week, with the pressure on, I have succeeded each day in getting my son to sleep. Some days have gone more smoothly than others, but somehow reading "Gus the Friendly Ghost" has done the trick each time.

Now, if I can just learn to make the most of the time I get while he's sleeping.

• Contact Jessica Wiant at jwiant@nvdaily.com.