Sleeping like a baby!!

Whoever coined the term 'sleeping like a baby', probably never had a baby, or was definitely not a woman. Maybe there is no real reason for this post. After all my babies are grown up , but I read about the Ferber Method, and wished Dr Ferber and not Dr Spock was the 'bringing up baby doctor' of our times.

The wide awake baby for me, was the younger one. At least with the elder one, I could hope for a couple of hours of rest whenever she fell asleep. But as for the younger one...... I think she is now making up on her lost sleep as a baby! She rarely slept over an hour. Sometimes it was only 20 minutes. I had to rush to complete whatever job I had, leaving me a very tired mother. And I was adept ( I do not recommend this for any mother) at cutting vegetables and cooking while holding a baby! If she was active during the day, one would hope she would tire herself by night. But no! She would wake up sometime in the night and I had to pick her up and put her to sleep and by which time I was wide awake. This continued until the man took matters in his hand and threatened the little baby. My heart bled..... but it worked wonders, and after that at least, I managed some sleep at night.

The Ferber Method is to prepare the baby to sleep . It says at bedtime leave the child in bed and leave the room. Return at progressively increasing intervals to comfort the baby (without picking him up). The first night, return after three minutes, then after five minutes, and thereafter each ten minutes, until the baby is asleep. Each subsequent night, return at intervals longer than the night before. It stops you from handling or feeding the baby to make him fall asleep, but allows you to reassure him of your presence at pre-prescribed intervals.

I wish I had known, but babies do have this uncanny knack of making you feel guilty about being an inadequate mother. It always helps being a little stone hearted.

When the baby is 'controllable' or so you think, you try and return to the life you enjoyed. We realised that we had not seen a movie for almost two years after the first born had arrived. There was this movie everybody was raving about. The paternal grandfather had seen it 4 times and it was agreed that we would all go for the movie and in the event that the little one felt claustrophobic, he would take her out . The movie began. The 'baby' enjoyed the popcorn and the advertisements. We relaxed. But it was short lived. By the time the actual movie started, she was restless. The grandpa by now was totally engrossed in the film for the 5th time. And so the father went out. In no time I was outside too. It was only after the movie was over that we were joined by grand dad.

We watched the movie much later when they showed it on the small screen. We never attempted the exercise with the younger one. And over a period of time have lost interest in watching movies at the theatre!