Can anyone do this? Are there people who can quickly transition from that exhausted-but-awake state to a drowsy one? There's an important distinction to make that advice-givers aren't recognizing. Yes, I'm absolutely sleep deprived in a way that burns my eyes and forces me to talk to myself as I do things ("OK, I'm in the kitchen now and I'm going to open the fridge and pull out the juice") for fear that I'll end up just shuffling aimlessly around the house, but I'm also, unfortunately, alert. I don't want to be alert, but I was just holding and feeding my baby. So I was focused. If I'm going to nap when the baby naps, I need some time to wind down and turn off my brain. Some quiet. Some Netflix. Some romance.
