Look before you Sleep!
You know how as couples you tend to take it for granted, the time you spend with each other when you don't have kids... That situation really changes once you have a kid and then you crave for even that extra few mins you get after you put the kid to bed (I can see vicious nodding ..). To be clear, I have always valued every minute I spent with my wife and never took it for granted even when we didn't have a kid (Just in case she reads this post)
Now most of us Indians still practice co-sleeping and haven't really cracked the code of letting the baby fall asleep on its own.. There is this ingrained melodramatic voice inside which keeps saying "how can you let your baby cry and feel alone and scared.. what kind of parents are you?". Well to start off , we didn't sign up for this few months of sleep deprivation clinic.. but again because of this dramatic inner voice the child is now habituated to falling asleep with one of the parent. (In some rare cases of buy one get one.. with both parents).
This essentially means.. every night basis the mood of the kid one of us goes to put him to bed while being heckled by the other as "loser" on the way to the bedroom! From here on starts the daily ritual... The cute story they show in the movies or on the telly where the mom or dad reads to the kid.. closes the big book... plants a kiss on the forehead and the kid falls asleep! That is one big fat lie! (That is just like how they show that one tiny drop of dish-wash liquid will magically clear all the grime.. but that one drop doesn't do shit... sorry language... the only thing that one drop does is break your self confidence and ruin your chances at the Maid-Olympics) Sorry what was i talking about... Yes.. If it were up to us.. we could make an entire movie out of putting the kid to sleep and not just a mushy 2 minute cameo! A mystery/thriller at that!
What is edited from the making video of that scene is the following...
- Bargaining for the maximum number of books that can be read
- Selecting the slimmest book/shortest story
- Reading the same story 12 times
- Reading the last story in a sleepy/non exciting tone hoping for the best..
- Switching off the lights
- Acting to fall asleep immediately
- Fake yawning and heavy breathing
- Get up for passing the water bottle to the kid (Bonus time if there is spillage)
- Repeat steps 6,7
- Get up to help the kid pee
- Repeat steps 6,7
- Threaten to leave and call the other parent if he doesn't sleep (soft blackmail)
- Repeat steps 6,7
- Kiss the forehead of the presumed sleeping baby
- Slowly try to leave the bed without making any noise
- Busted by the baby.. (Still awake)
- Repeat steps 6,7
- Fall asleep yourself not knowing if you put the baby to sleep or the other way!
There is your movie! A little bit of suspense...thrill and a lot of drama! Sometimes.. in the middle there is a swap of parents and many nights one of us gets stood up for our drawing room date while the other one falls asleep in the bedroom. (The score is 366 nights - 295 nights; Me and my wife)
Scared yet? Don't be. its actually not that scary. It has taken us just a few years to master this art of putting the baby to sleep... (we cut down the afternoon nap and realized the solution was pretty easy!). Still, there are days when we live through this. It is also during this time that kids tell you the most amazing stories and facts.. (How he likes me more than his mother... etc). That really makes up for all this effort. So would i do it every night? Hell Yeah! Or may be that's me sleep talking..
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