New Noises
Steve and I have gotten somewhat complacent if Ben wakes up in the middle of the night. For one thing, Ben doesn't cry as much as he did when he was younger. He just gives a bit of an "I'm awake, is anyone else?" whimper that doesn't mean he's hungry. Often he falls right back asleep. Other times he ramps up and one of us will go in and coax him back to sleep.
It is easy, however, in the confusing middle of the night, to convince yourself that perhaps you are a horribly bad parent for choosing your own sleep over comforting your child -- no matter how many sleep books tell you how much better in the long run it is for your child to learn how to comfort himself.
Thankfully, Steve and I now know that we are not bad parents, and that we can come through when it really counts. Last night, at 4:30 Ben let out a sudden yell that was unlike anything we'd ever heard before. We've heard him in pain (there was that, um, incident with the nail clipper when his skin got in the way) but this cry had real fear in it too.
We were both out of bed, wide awake, and in his room within nanoseconds. I imagined him to be in some horrible nausea state; Steve thought perhaps his twirling lamb mobile (MacGyvered to the side of the crib with duct tape) had fallen down on him.
In fact, the Bug had gotten his leg stuck in between the slats of his crib -- his foot dangling outside the bed, his thick thigh lodged between two pieces of wood. A friend of mine has a grandchild who did this so tightly that they had to call the fire department to take apart the crib -- luckily, Ben's leg slid out easily.
He stopped crying instantly. And then he started talking. These were all new noises, too, a set of vowel sounds that he was trying to make sound like a sentence. We held him as he tried to tell us all about the scary thing that had just happened to him -- "Dude, I woke up; and then I tried to kick and my leg wouldn't MOVE. It was dark and I couldn't see and something had hold of my leg. You got here just in time."
So now Ben has three party tricks -- kicking, holding, and talking -- and his crib has a pretty yellow bumper all around to protect him from those mean slats.
It is easy, however, in the confusing middle of the night, to convince yourself that perhaps you are a horribly bad parent for choosing your own sleep over comforting your child -- no matter how many sleep books tell you how much better in the long run it is for your child to learn how to comfort himself.
Thankfully, Steve and I now know that we are not bad parents, and that we can come through when it really counts. Last night, at 4:30 Ben let out a sudden yell that was unlike anything we'd ever heard before. We've heard him in pain (there was that, um, incident with the nail clipper when his skin got in the way) but this cry had real fear in it too.
We were both out of bed, wide awake, and in his room within nanoseconds. I imagined him to be in some horrible nausea state; Steve thought perhaps his twirling lamb mobile (MacGyvered to the side of the crib with duct tape) had fallen down on him.
In fact, the Bug had gotten his leg stuck in between the slats of his crib -- his foot dangling outside the bed, his thick thigh lodged between two pieces of wood. A friend of mine has a grandchild who did this so tightly that they had to call the fire department to take apart the crib -- luckily, Ben's leg slid out easily.
He stopped crying instantly. And then he started talking. These were all new noises, too, a set of vowel sounds that he was trying to make sound like a sentence. We held him as he tried to tell us all about the scary thing that had just happened to him -- "Dude, I woke up; and then I tried to kick and my leg wouldn't MOVE. It was dark and I couldn't see and something had hold of my leg. You got here just in time."
So now Ben has three party tricks -- kicking, holding, and talking -- and his crib has a pretty yellow bumper all around to protect him from those mean slats.
Labels: learning to be a parent
posted by Karen | 9:38 AM
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