Babies come with a whole ‘nother level of planned activity. You don’t know exactly when you’re going to be doing what, but you know that (in my case) the baby is going to eat about every 3 hours, and that it will take about half an hour to feed him, and that after 2 hours of being awake (including the eating), he is going to need to go down for a nap, and that it can take anywhere from 5 minutes to half an hour to put him down for his nap. Also that his diapers will need to be changed every couple of hours, and that when none of the sleeping or eating or diaper changing is happening, you will want to be playing. Or letting the baby play off to the side while you do the dishes or cook food or put away laundry. And then sometimes you go for walks or go to the library or go to a meeting or so.

I could imagine all of the above feeling like “nothing”, because mostly specific things do not happen at specific times of the day. But it doesn’t. It feels scheduled. Calix’s 3-hour-plus nap this afternoon was the first time I’d had that “nothing” feeling in a long time, and I think it was because I had only schedule 40 minutes of activity for the time, since that’s the usual amount of time he sleeps. And of course I didn’t do nothing, but the time hadn’t been allocated, and so I did… basically a bunch of random things that occurred to me at the time. And it felt like a big relief after all the planned activity!

So, I feel like I know some of what you mean. And these were just some thoughts about my new life vis a vis your post.

And this spontaneous comment was that kind of “nothing” time that also doesn’t really feel like “nothing” time to me, because I am supposed to be getting ready for and going to bed. It’s cheat time!