Once upon a time, last Sunday, there was a nice couple with a very cute baby (that’s us!). They put their baby to bed at the usual time, nodding smugly to each other and thinking (somewhat delusional) “this night will be the night, the night he doesn’t wake up or make a peep.” The following is the story of the rest of that night:
12:15am: Baby is crying, we both wake up. Grumble, grumble. Dad goes up to check on baby, gives him pacifier and back to sleep.
12:25am: Crying again! Pacifier fell out- but his eyes are closed so maybe he is still asleep? I go up, put it back in. Rub baby on the top of the head to calm him down. White noise machine has been on the whole time.
Wait in the hallway.
12:30am: failure. Crying again! Repeat from before. Ahhhhh, finally some silence!
12:45am: Round 4.
1:26am: Almost asleep and then we hear crying again. “What do we do?” We ask each other. “Let’s let him cry for a little while maybe he will go back asleep” we tell ourselves.
1:42am: Decide maybe he is hungry & that’s why he is crying so much. Give him a bottle and all is good. Tweet excessively about all this & receive comfort from friends in England and Hawaii. (no one in the continental US is awake) He is falling asleep after the bottle, yay!
He starts coughing and coughs so hard it makes him throw up all the bottle he just drank! I clean him up, change his diaper and give him new pajamas. All the while he is smiling and giggling. I put him in his crib, turn on the music toy and go to change my own clothes. Frustrated, I just fall back into bed.
Sometime later he starts crying again. I try to give him a little more bottle but he doesn’t really want it. He calms down while I’m holding him and patting him on the back. Clearly he is awake and now thinks it’s party time! I try to put him back in the crib but he cries immediately.
2:45am: Go sit on the bed in the guest room. Cry and tweet more whiny tweets about babies not sleeping.
2:50am: I finally figure out what he wants. He wants to play with mommy. Not cuddle, not sing, not rock, but play! I pile a bunch of stuff to one side of the guest room bed and lay him down between the stuff and me so he doesn’t roll off. He spends the next 35 minutes rolling around, laughing, grabbing my face and pulling my hair.
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| Asleep!!!!! |
3:25: He is ASLEEP!! Oh the joy! Gingerly pick him up from the guest room bed and carefully carry him to his room and place him in his crib.
3:30am: Go back to my nice warm bed. Thank the lord I don’t have to work tomorrow!
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| Good Morning Mamma! |
But in the end, who can be mad at that face?!?
By the way, does anyone have any good advice about baby sleeping?!?!
Let’s connect!
