Most common question recently: “Hey, Hal…how’s the baby?” The usual answer is “Doing just fine”, but the honest answer has “…but it’s a major pain in the ass to get her to sleep at night” tacked on to the end.
You see, when we lay her down in her bassinette, she fusses and cries. The only thing that makes her happy is when we press the magic button that makes it alllll better. There is a small box attached to the bassinette that sends a low, soothing vibration throughout her sleeping space, and when we hit that button to turn it on, she loves it…goes right to sleep.
Trouble is, the vibration only lasts for 10 minutes. So we’ve got a several-hour-long pattern of “push button/sleep for a few minutes/get woken up by the baby when the vibration stops/push button again”.
So, I’m thinking about this problem on my way home from work last night. If only the vibration box could be tampered with in some way to extend the vibration time…or if only there were something else I could secure to the bassinette that…would…vibrate…
Wait…there IS something.
Something located right in our bedroom.
Right in my wife’s nightstand drawer.
It’s relatively compact. It’ll last for hours. It could easily be duct taped to the bottom of the bassinette.
“No, no, no, no, NO!”, I think to myself… my wife would never go along with the idea, and it’s just…well…wrong.
But still…for a good night’s sleep? Very tempting…
Just remember to detach it from the bassinette before using it for its intended purpose and you should be fine. I mean, otherwise, you’d get hair clippings all over the blankets, and it’d be hard to get your bangs even without a mirror handy.
I’m not here to judge, but I hope you realize that if you decide to do this, at some point the child will be a teenager, and will have friends over, and in that moment you will feel an overwhelming urge to say something really cute, and you will think of just the perfect thing to say, and you will pinch your child’s cheek and say:
“You know, when X was a baby, she could never sleep through the night until we duct-taped a…”
I’ll let you figure the rest out for yourself. Before you do this, think long and hard about whether you want to put your child through that.
Oh man, you’re getting off (heh!) easy! A friend of mine, if she wanted to get any sleep, had to put the baby in the pram and walk her across a section of their living-roomfloor strewn with powerchords. For hours.
I suggest planning ahead, and investing in a handfull of these(NWS). They just have that “oooooer! shiney!” baby’s-favorite-toy-and-thing-to-slobber-and-teethe-on look about them.
And you’ll be all set when she needs a night-light…
And then she’ll be all set when she needs a safe place to put her key to the house…
For heaven’s sake. If you’re really feeling icky about it, go out and buy one of those things where the box shows someone using it to relax their shoulders.
When my kids were small I would have hired Satan as a nanny if it meant getting a good night’s sleep.
