Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Putting the baby girl to bed

I've made it more difficult than it should be.

I never stopped rocking her to sleep. And now she's 20 months old and used to the cuddling. So to get out of it, I know what has to happen. Laying her down, kissing her goodnight and then putting up with the crying.

Doesn't sound fun.

I made another mistake a few weeks ago, though. I added a step to falling asleep. Nice work, Mommy.

It was right before Christmas and my beautiful daughter wouldn't go to sleep.

She was overtired, and she was crying. I turned off the lights and we sat down to rock like every other night, but this night she wouldn't stop crying.

I tried hushing her, rocking faster, covering her up with a blanket but nothing worked. Really, she just needed to fall asleep.

I tried singing. "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" got a, "No, Mama!" "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" got a similar response, as did the ABCs.

On a last-ditch whim, I tried "Jingle Bells."

It worked. Hallelujah, the child stopped crying! And within minutes, she fell asleep.

Relieved and a little proud of myself, I sneaked out of the room, my baby resting soundly. "Jingle Bells," I thought. Who knew?

Well, about four weeks later, I want to chuck the lyrics to "Jingle Bells" right out of my brain. Know why? Because I've had to sing it EVERY bedtime and nap-time since. Every single one. And if I stop after five or six rounds because, I don't know, I'm TIRED, I get, "Mooore Jingle Bells, Mama. MOOORE Jingle Bells" in a sort of whiny little girl voice.

So then I sing more. I've started whispering it and only singing the chorus, in the honest hope that she'll get bored and ask me to stop.

No such luck. Yet. At least she falls asleep ...

Until I decide to stop rocking and singing all together. Oh, boy.

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2 comments:

Nicole said...

They are so clever aren't they?

Anonymous said...

That's hilarious...