It was a Saturday afternoon, around 2 p.m., when Sarah stumbled upon me snoozing instead of attending to the laundry.
“What on earth?” she exclaimed. “Why do you get to nap?”
“I’m not napping,” I tried to joke, my voice muffled by the pillow. “I just kind of collapsed and realized how cozy the bed is.”
She wasn’t amused. “I want a nap,” she replied.
“Then go ahead,” I suggested, still half-buried in the sheets.
“We don’t have time for that,” she emphasized the “we.” “Tommy has a soccer game in 20 minutes, and then we need to grab dirt for the backyard before the nursery closes.”
As she stormed out, guilt washed over me. With three kids under nine, getting them all to sleep for more than five hours is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Occasionally, we hit the jackpot, but it’s rare. One kid will wake up thirsty at 10 p.m., and by midnight, another is crying from a nightmare. The real troublemaker is Mia, our 1-year-old, who has decided that early mornings are ideal for starting her day.
I consume a shocking amount of caffeine to cope.
Our lives are a whirlwind. I juggle a full-time job while Sarah is a stay-at-home mom and a part-time student. Our house is forever in need of repairs or cleaning, and the older kids are involved in sports, scouts, and other activities that fill our weekends. It’s thrilling but tiring, and finding time for naps is almost impossible.
Sleep has become a point of contention—a coveted resource that can be bartered for everything from chores to intimacy. If you ask Sarah what she desires for her birthday, the answer is always the same: sleep. I feel the same way.
We could theoretically ignore our responsibilities and just sleep, but that’s not realistic. Parenting is relentless. Our kids constantly require attention, and there’s never a moment to simply let go and rest. Plus, our oldest can watch himself but not his younger siblings, especially the baby.
Naps can only happen when one parent is on kid duty while the other sleeps. For the one staying awake, the thought of the other enjoying a peaceful nap feels like a betrayal—unless there’s a negotiation involved.
Just the weekend before Sarah caught me napping, I was in the backyard pulling weeds when she approached me, clearly exhausted from a long night with Mia. “If you let me take a nap, we can have some fun later,” she proposed.
We haggled a bit over the terms. Eventually, we agreed that she could nap while I took the kids to the soccer game, and then I could sleep while she took them grocery shopping. Neither option was ideal; taking three kids to a game sounded chaotic, and I imagined she felt the same about the store trip. But the thought of a nap made it worth it.
After we settled the deal, she smiled and said, “Pleasure doing business with you.” I echoed her sentiment.
This kind of negotiation has become our new normal, but it’s a stark reminder of how we’ve turned sleep into a trading commodity in our marriage. We’re both exhausted, but at least we’re in it together.
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In summary, sleep is a precious commodity in marriage, especially when parenting young children. The constant demands can turn rest into a negotiation, reminding couples that they must work together to find balance amid the chaos of family life.