Sleeping Like a Baby

By Sean McVeigh

English is a funny language. It’s famously one of the hardest to learn as an adult. Technically a Germanic language, English is also a linguistic mutt with a vocabulary consisting of all sorts of Latin, Greek, Old English, and French all thrown into the same pot.

And just to add insult to injury, we’ve decided to make idioms an essential part of everyday conversation. Just when someone thinks they’re getting the hang of it (“OK, so ‘home’ and ‘comb’ rhyme, but ‘said’ and ‘paid’ do not.”) — bam! — someone drops a, “Hold your horses!” or “Don’t beat around the bush,” and suddenly, they’re right back to square one.

The problem is, some idioms make zero sense. Take “sleeping like a baby,” for example. Was the person who coined that phrase ever actually around a baby? They sleep horribly! And, in turn, they make everyone else sleep like garbage, too. That idiom should be replaced with “sleeping like a teenager on a Saturday morning.” Now that’s more accurate.

Me? I love my sleep. As much as I’d like to be, I am not a morning person. I hit the snooze button like it owed me money. When the opportunity presents itself, I sleep in like it’s going out of style. And when I’m forced to wake up by society and all its cumbersome norms, it’s always under protest.

I have always envied people who can run like a well-oiled machine on five hours of sleep. Not me. I’d be running like a New York City government program. Speaking of NYC, living in New York makes you feel bad for sleeping in. “The city that never sleeps” really does not sleep. It doesn’t matter what hour it is, when you are on the road or public transportation, you are never alone. There are other folks out and about heading off to their jobs grinding it out — probably thinking about when they can finally get some sleep.

Of course, once you hit a certain age, sleeping in becomes a pipe dream. I don’t think my parents have set an alarm in a decade. They’re up with the sun, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, whether they like it or not. Apparently, Father Time isn’t on speaking terms with Morpheus, the Dream Lord.

When you’re a child, all the adults want is for you to sleep — but that’s the last thing you want to do. As a teenager, all you want to do is sleep — but your parents won’t let you. As an adult, there’s never time to sleep — but you’d give anything for it. And when you’re older, sleep sounds like a dream, but your body has other plans for you.

Still, no matter where you are in life — nursery school, medical school, or finally off the clock — there’s one thing we can all agree on: the pure, unadulterated joy of a good nap. The length and location are negotiable, but the bliss is universal. Whether it’s on a couch, at the beach, in a hammock, or, if you are brave enough, on the train with a hoodie pulled over your head, a nap can really hit the spot.

Some people have it down to a science. I know folks who can close their eyes for exactly 20 minutes — no alarm—and wake up fresh as a daisy. Others will crash hard, dead to the world for a couple of hours, and wake up wondering what planet they’re on.

Sleep is a necessity, sure — but for some of us, it’s a sacred ritual. So while we might not always sleep like babies, let’s count our blessings that we’re not waking up on the wrong side of the bed. And if you do wake up on the wrong side, at least you don’t have to relearn English and all its wacky idioms.