Let Sleeping Babies Lie

Four nights ago we started a bedtime routine for Blueberry. She had been doing most of her sleeping at night already, but we had been putting her down for the night at our bedtime instead of a kid's bedtime, and she would sleep late into the morning (waking up briefly for a couple of feedings during the night). I wanted to move everything back a few hours so that if we needed to go somewhere in the morning she would have had a good rest. So, around 8:00 p.m., I change her diaper, put on her jammies, take her upstairs, turn on her sleep sheep, a gift from cousins Lulu* and Lydia* (this is more for me than for her; I just love the ocean wave sounds. It calms me right down. I wish I had discovered this earlier in my life), feed her, and wait a few minutes until she seems to be sleeping deeply, and lay her in her crib. Then tiptoe out of the room, down the incredibly creaky stairs, and anxiously keep my ear glued to the monitor for the next two hours. And when I say glued, I mean LITERALLY glued. Ha ha. Just kidding.

Two out of four times, she woke up within a few minutes, maybe because I didn't wait long enough for her to get to sleep before laying her down. I don't want to lay her down while she's awake because she will cry and I just don't want to hear her cry. I just don't want it. The other two times, she stayed a sleep. The kids are in bed. The gift of time, to be offered nightly for the rest of the foreseeable future, most of the time. A couple of hours to myself before bedtime. Maybe I'll do the dishes. Perhaps I will fold laundry. I do believe I'll have a shower, if I can unglue the monitor from my ear and glue it to Stanley's ear.

If you have any thoughts on baby bedtime routines, I would be glad to hear it. Just as a reminder to some of you, you are supposed to sandwich criticisms or concerns between positive statements, if you don't want to make a vulnerable new mother cry and feel like a bad mother.

I wanted to mention, in case you had heard about this and were concerned, that I am aware of the baby sling recall. My sling is not the brand that was recalled, but it's the same basic design, so I'm going to play it safe and not use it. It's a shame because slings are such a wonderful thing but they are going to get a bad rap because this one was not designed with safety in mind.

I'll see if the company will take the sling back without the original packaging, but I don't want to go through too much trouble with that. I may use it as a diaper bag or a hanging basket, or cut it up and just use the fabric for something. It's a cute fabric. I'll add it to my growing pile of clothes and linens that I would have donated to charity if it weren't for their possible use in sewing projects. It's my goal to avoid buying new fabric unless it's necessary, partly because I'm poor, and partly to help save the environment.

Speaking of sewing, I am SEW close to starting a project. First I have to mend a pair of Stanley's jeans. Then I can work on something less pressing. I have such a long list of projects I want to do (I've listed them in a previous entry sew I am not going to repeat myself), it's hard to know where to start.

Blueberry has become easier to entertain.

I wish I hadn't used her real name in the video but oh well. I don't want to call her Blueberry in real life. At least not on a regular basis.

And to head off a possible concern, no, she does not sleep in this basket, unless we are watching her. At night she sleeps in a pack'n play, with only a fitted sheet under her, and she's swaddled tightly in a blanket that is not near her face, and there are no toys or crap in there with her. Well, sometimes crap ends up in there but I didn't put it there. That's all her.

*Names changed.