I remember getting swatted on my behind for not having my eyes closed during naptime. How is one supposed to nap with all those sharp noises going on?

I recall naptime at Bartlett Street School in Milwaukee. Kindergarten only. That was in 1944. The following year I was in first grade at St. Robert's in Shorewood, WI. No naptime. I don't think anybody slept during naptime. The good Dominican nuns kept our noses to the grindstone at St. Robert.

I agree with all the comments about how hated nap time was, but I think it was probably the teacher's only respite.

We slept on throw rugs, not pads as shown. (We were tougher then).

I was the official "rug monitor." At nap time, it was my job to hold up each rug so that the owner could come up to claim their own to nap on.

With all those flies are buzzing around?!? That would have driven me nuts as a kid!

Just the "bedclothes" are different. Children now have a padded mat covered by their own tiny sheet with their own tiny blanket and their own tiny pillow.

that a nap was considered almost a punishment back then, but now at age 72, it's a blessed reward?

When I was in kindergarten, we had nap time in the afternoon after lunch, and I hated it. I couldn't sleep in the afternoon. I still can't. The only time I can sleep outside of nighttime is if I'm sick, and my teacher despaired over the fact that I wouldn't lie on my cot and go to sleep. Finally, my mother told her to stop complaining and give me something to do instead. After that, while everyone else napped, I sat next to her desk and read a book.

My sister didn't have the same issue. If anything, her teacher had a hard time waking her up. She can sleep standing up on the train if she leans against the side of the car. It's a gift.

Good memory call there, rhhardin. Looking at this photo of boys at naptime, I didn’t even wonder about the girls. But of course they were elsewhere in the room.

I used to think naptime was absurd. I remember gazing with amazement at the kids who actually fell asleep.

That's the boys' half of the room. Sugar and spice out of sight.

I despised those "nap times" as a kid in the mid-1950s.

Mouthy then as now, I got in trouble for saying to my Fernandina Beach kindergarten teacher, "So I guess you've never heard of a pillow?"

The fragment comes from the Alice & Jerry Pre-Primer Rides and Slides.

This is right after the stale Graham Crackers and warm milk. We did this in Kindergarten.

How can a person nap with all these flashes going off?