The Myth of "Sleep When She Sleeps" and "Let the Housework Go"

During my oft-bitched about maternity classes, I distinctly remember watching a video where a beautiful, ethnically ambiguous woman sat at a table nibbling an apple between sips of tap water. Her baby, resting in a bouncer at her feet, calmly read Dostoyevsky while wearing a monocle. (The three-month mark is a great time to introduce the Russian novelists. If your baby isn’t quite there yet, hopefully you are reading this blog on your phone while you wait in your pediatrician’s office! Don’t worry, though, I’m sure everything’s fine…)

The video was meant to illustrate several things, such as what to eat so you don’t suck as a mom. My classmates and I all nodded to ourselves and took notes. I wrote down “Don’t shotgun a Coke over the sink while boiling water for Ramen noodles.” And, I swear to you, I have stuck to that. I think it’s good advice to eat well. I have a bit of a problem, however, with some of the other pieces of advice.

Sleep When She Sleeps and Let the Housework Go must just be words people say to women when they are nine-months pregnant with their first child so they leave maternity classes feeling assured. I clung to that advice because it made me really happy. Then I had a baby and realized it was all bullshit.

Mae and I eating dinner.

When Mae takes a nap, I naturally spend the first 15 minutes panicking about everything I have to do. Then I ask myself how long I’ve been wearing the clothes I have on. If it is more than a day, I scan for vomit. If I don’t find any, I count that as a success and move on. Am I hungry? Probably. Actually, always. (I don’t eat full meals anymore, unless you count Todd hand-feeding me tacos while I nurse Mae in an armchair.) So I shove a Clif Bar in my mouth and eat it like I am being timed for a contest. Next, I probably have to pump so Todd has a couple bottles to accomodate Mae’s adorable appetite while I’m at work the next day. This is fine though because I can just stand at my kitchen counter and grade papers while hooked up to the vaguely Medieval machine that is my breast pump. You know what? While I’m here I might as well do some calf raises.

Let the Housework Go? When we say that, do we just mean let the housework that you only do every 4-6 months anyway go? Or the housework you only do if someone you’ve never met before is coming over? Like Michelle Obama? Because then I understand. Like, I’m not going to be dusting my ceiling fan until Mae graduates. With her doctorate. But the rest of the housework? How can you not do that? Mae wears clothes and takes a bottle. She also breathes air and needs a place a sleep. All of this means that I cannot let the housework go, at least not in a way that would be beneficial to me in terms of time. 

You know what me and Todd do in order to remain calm and collected? We don’t let the housework go and we don’t sleep when she sleeps. Two words: cocktail hour. Readers of my previous blog will not be surprised. I’m drinking right now, and Mae is resting peacefully. I have frozen bags of breast milk stacked precariously in my freezer. Let me tell you: makes everything go down a lot smoother. It must be why Roosevelt did it as well.