Whose Line Is It Anyway?
I found myself in the dense jungle. The heat was oppressive and the humidity was worse. From all around the cries of macaques could be heard. While I couldn't see any of the monkeys I could see the foliage shaking all around me. Gradually the jungle scene faded and I realized I was lying in bed. There were no monkeys just one screaming newborn. He does, however, sound pretty simian; perhaps ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny in vocal development as well.
After listening to his screams for what must have been hours even though my clock only moved by one minute I decided that something had to be done. I considered replacing the clock but I figured that could wait until morning. Instead I staggered around to the other side of the bed and picked up my son. That didn't stop his crying it only made it louder.
After about five minutes of pacing the room, cooing, shushing and bouncing he drifted to a nice little slumber. I laid him gently in the crib. After two children I've learned that you can't just place a child in their crib. Like a migratory bird detecting magnetic north, babies know when they are being abandoned to the gulag that we call a crib. In order to trick this innate reckoning one must simultaneously rock and lower the child until they are firmly on the mattress. At this point it is safe to start removing your hands but you cannot stop the rocking. It is imperative that the rocking continues until the shock of the abandonment wears off. We used to manage this by putting our hands on the chest and giving it a little jiggle but we've borrowed a rocking bassinet (thanks Esther and Eric) so this is quite a bit easier.
Once the child is safely asleep it is safe to creep - I can't stress the creep strongly enough - back to bed and hope nothing wakes him. Inevitably this won't work the first time and you'll have to repeat some of this process. How long before the crying starts again is anyone's guess: you may have not even reached the bed or worse you may have gotten into bed and are settling the covers or worse still you could have gotten into bed, settled the covers and started drifting to sleep. No matter how you slice it the baby is awake again.
At this point you ask yourself: "Have I done my parently duty and is it time to wake my spouse or is it still my turn and this is still a single incident of a woken child?" Certainly if you're not in bed or are still settling in the answer is obvious but not so when you've started drifting to sleep. You've not really paid attention to the time on the clock when you set them down perhaps you have been dozing for longer than you think and maybe it really is their turn. On the other hand, your spouse has been snoring since you first picked up the baby so they have no idea how long you've been up. Perhaps you can get away clean by pretending to be fast asleep.
You could also just suck it up and drag your tired butt out of bed for another 10 rounds with the flyweight champion of the house
After listening to his screams for what must have been hours even though my clock only moved by one minute I decided that something had to be done. I considered replacing the clock but I figured that could wait until morning. Instead I staggered around to the other side of the bed and picked up my son. That didn't stop his crying it only made it louder.
After about five minutes of pacing the room, cooing, shushing and bouncing he drifted to a nice little slumber. I laid him gently in the crib. After two children I've learned that you can't just place a child in their crib. Like a migratory bird detecting magnetic north, babies know when they are being abandoned to the gulag that we call a crib. In order to trick this innate reckoning one must simultaneously rock and lower the child until they are firmly on the mattress. At this point it is safe to start removing your hands but you cannot stop the rocking. It is imperative that the rocking continues until the shock of the abandonment wears off. We used to manage this by putting our hands on the chest and giving it a little jiggle but we've borrowed a rocking bassinet (thanks Esther and Eric) so this is quite a bit easier.
Once the child is safely asleep it is safe to creep - I can't stress the creep strongly enough - back to bed and hope nothing wakes him. Inevitably this won't work the first time and you'll have to repeat some of this process. How long before the crying starts again is anyone's guess: you may have not even reached the bed or worse you may have gotten into bed and are settling the covers or worse still you could have gotten into bed, settled the covers and started drifting to sleep. No matter how you slice it the baby is awake again.
At this point you ask yourself: "Have I done my parently duty and is it time to wake my spouse or is it still my turn and this is still a single incident of a woken child?" Certainly if you're not in bed or are still settling in the answer is obvious but not so when you've started drifting to sleep. You've not really paid attention to the time on the clock when you set them down perhaps you have been dozing for longer than you think and maybe it really is their turn. On the other hand, your spouse has been snoring since you first picked up the baby so they have no idea how long you've been up. Perhaps you can get away clean by pretending to be fast asleep.
You could also just suck it up and drag your tired butt out of bed for another 10 rounds with the flyweight champion of the house
posted by daniel @ 8:52 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home