Rest Time

I grew up in Indonesia where, everyday between noon and 4pm, the shops would shut. This was the hottest part of the day, and everyone went home for lunch and then had a nap. Called an istirahat in Indonesian, a siesta in Spanish, people in the tropics know how important this time is to refresh themselves at the most exhausting time of the day.

My parents adapted to this tradition very well! We too had to lie down in the afternoon, or at least if we didn’t want to sleep, we had to play in our rooms quietly. How I hated the days when I was told I HAD to sleep because we were going to have a late night. I could never fall asleep!

It was after my first child was born that I started taking a nap every day. I was tired after night feeds and when Daniel slept in the afternoon, I caught a quick 20 min to half an hour of much needed catch up sleep. I soon got into quite a habit of doing this (and I soon fell pregnant again and needed the sleep even more!). It was a short time of refreshment for me, after which I would get up and have a cup of tea and muddle around the house a bit before my sleepyhead woke up.

After Elizabeth was born Daniel was in that difficult stage of not wanting to sleep in the afternoons anymore. But I still made him lie down in his cot and rest….. I put toys at the foot of his cot and when the coast was clear, he would hop up and play with the toys! Sometimes he still fell asleep on top of all the toys because there were days when he really still needed that sleep! Other days he only played. But during this time, I kept having my little nap and cup of tea.

As the children grew older and didn’t have cots anymore, I would still enforce this time alone in the afternoon. I called it Rest Time. It was a time for us all to have a bit of time on our own, in our own space. The children didn’t always have their separate rooms, so I would split them up in different rooms of the house with activities to do. I found this so important especially when I got post natal depression and was Homeschooling and really needed to just have some time to myself.

Many of my friends would come around in the afternoons frazzled and weary after a night of being up with little ones. I suggested they had a time in the afternoon to have a short nap, but their response was “Oh, no, Johnny won’t let me! As soon as I lie down he wants my attention!”

I trained my children to have this Rest Time. It didn’t happen overnight! There were also days when they tested me. They would bang on the door and yell to be let out. But I would go into their rooms, put them back into bed, and gently tell them that this was rest time. If they didn’t want to sleep, they could play quietly.

May I encourage you mothers with young children to start this with your babies and toddlers? You can train them to give you an hour to yourself each day. Start with less time and build it up. Some days the children were playing so happily that I didn’t open their doors until two hours later! (No, I didn’t lock them in, I just shut the doors and they knew they could come out when I opened them!!!)

You may think your children have different personalities than mine, and they would never be able to spend 10 minutes on their own in their rooms, let alone one hour! Let me tell you that my children all have very different personalities and some of them needed more discipline than the others, but we were still able to train them to do this.

Sometimes they would beg me to spend Rest Time together! This usually turned out to be a mistake. They would start off by playing nicely, but then there would be arguments and Rest Time would end really quickly! I learned to be firm and tell them that it wouldn’t be long until they could play with their brother or sister again.

This Rest Time is not only important for you, but also for your children. If you are a Homeschooling family, you are around each other day in and day out. Everyone benefits from a little time alone. Children need to know how to entertain themselves, just as much as they need to know how to get along with each other.

If we think we have to entertain our children and keep them occupied with activities all day, we are making life very hard for ourselves. Train your children to have a Rest Time in the afternoon and take one yourself too. Don’t use this time to run around the house madly trying to get everything done. If you don’t need a sleep, then sit on the couch, put your feet up and have a cuppa! Grab a good book. Read your Bible. Spend some time with the Lord. Recharge your batteries and you will have renewed strength to finish off the day. You are allowed to pamper yourself a little!!

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