Millie has dropped her daytime nap. All good things must come to an end…

I’ve tried everything to convince her that I – I mean, she – needs that all-important break – I mean, sleep – in the middle of the day.

I keep telling her that in 30 years she will regret being so anti-naps. She will wish she were a toddler again daily at 2pm, sitting at her office desk eating cheap work biscuits for the sugar hit to stay awake until knock off time, but she doesn’t seem to get it.

Annoyingly, I will spend the same amount of time trying to get her to take a nap as the old nap used to take.

Then after giving up I’ll pack her into the car to take her to swimming or dance or a play date and the first thing she does is FALL ALSEEP.

Not only that, if I leave her she will sleep for the entire lesson and then wake angry she missed her afternoon activity.

Or I wake her up for the activity after a quickie car kip, and she seems possessed by the devil and refuses to interact like a human with anyone.

I’ve noted the cycle and popped her in the car at nap time in the hope she will fall asleep as I drive around, allowing me to stop somewhere quiet so the two of us can go nap parking.

My devious plan never works and the car trip turns into Toddler Eye Spy for 40 minutes, which goes like this.

Millie: “I spy with my little eye….TREES. Now your turn, Mama!”

Quietly ignoring her doesn’t work, my silence only frustrates and upsets her.

There is only room for one person to be upset in a parent/child relationship, so I give in and play the one-sided Eye Spy, keeping her happy and me upset. At least there is balance.

Praying to the big guy in the sky to bring the nap strike of 2015 to an end has resulted in nothing more than me coming to the conclusion that God really doesn’t like women, because after the pain that is childbirth, then sleepless nights and mother’s guilt, the hell that is the decline of the daytime dreamtime is just another cruel joke.

It’s not so much the loss of the nap hour that is hell, it’s the disastrous dinnertime with an over-tired toddler.

It’s like she’s had a red cordial overdose EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Purchasing a drip to administer wine intravenously is my only relief.

I fight red with red, if you know what I mean. I’m joking, of course. I don’t have a drip.

Please don’t assume that my dismay over the demise of her nap is because I want to get away from my child for a moment.

I definitely don’t. We actually used to take naps together, little daily slumber parties.

We both needed it after busy mornings and it was such a sweet time. I loved reading her a few stories, then snuggling and smelling and staring at her as she slept.

Something she doesn’t allow me to do while she’s awake now that she’s a ‘big girl’.

I’d have a quick quiet moment of thanks for this lovely little human and then after 30 minutes of what I call my stress management, I’d sneak out of the slumber room and catch up on boring but necessary chores.

So I miss naps, not because I need a daily break from looking at her face, but because I want to continue looking at that little face.

Kids’ sleeping faces really are the most angelic little things in the world.