there is a new sport that has developed at our house — everyone has a different way to play it, but the objective is the same: getting Camille to sleep.
We’ve all experienced the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” (Remember the old intro to ABC’s Wide World of Sports where the skier crashes and flips down the mountain?) You don’t?
Maybe this will refresh your memory:
I loved watching that dude crash every week . . . have I mentioned how much I love the internet? I found that video in less than 10 seconds and then spent the next 10 minutes watching all the intros from the different years, all featuring the same crashing skier. I’m actually supposed to be packing, but I’m having my own 80s flashback party instead. Good times.
Anyway, back to my own crashing and burning. I am unable to get my baby to sleep. And every other member of the family has a trick that sometimes works. I got nothing.
My approach: Nurse baby. She falls asleep. Move her to her bed. She wakes up. I pat her for 20 seconds, arm starts to fall asleep (from hanging over the side of the bed) and I think, “I just nursed you for 20 minutes. This blows. I’m outta here.”
Thankfully, I have scores of teammates waiting to sub in. Calvin’s secret weapon is his ipod touch. He has a special playlist that he put together and labeled Camille’s nap music. He climbs in her bed, puts the ipod next to her head and pats her back. The other day he came out saying, “2 songs. A new record.”
Carter employs music too, but he sings to Camille. As long as he can pat and sing at the same time, he’s successful about 70% of the time.
Caleb lies down next to her and gets right up in her face. Sometimes he sings, sometimes he just talks to her and tells her to go to sleep. When she turns away from him he climbs to the other side so he can look right in her eyes. I only usually sub him in if it’s a hail-Mary type of situation since the odds of it working aren’t very high, but every now and then he gets the win.
I say that Josh has the best baby sleeper skillz since he is successful 95% of the time, but really I think that he just has more patience than I do. And he can’t nurse the baby. I think one of the unwritten rules of our game is possession of food is an automatic DQ.
Thankfully, in the last week Camille has gone from formidable adversary to a reluctant member of our team. Or at least she has moved to sitting on our sidelline. She is going to sleep easier and sleeping for “longer” stretches. I know it’s sad that I’m celebrating stretches of 3 -5 hours at night, but I’m enjoying thrill of victory anyway.