There’s a new game being played in my house lately. It’s cute, it’s endearing, it makes us laugh, and we like it. It also is probably going to get really old really quickly. It’s the sleep game.
I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. It’s the game children play when they’re obviously tired, often over-tired, and want to fool their parents into thinking they’ve finally given in to slumber.
Sleep has never really been an issue with my daughter. For the first 5 ½ months of her life, I always held her while she slept during the day. I either put her in the Moby Wrap and let her sleep while I got housework done, or I let her fall asleep after breastfeeding and held her on my lap. At night, she went to bed whenever we went to bed, and slept with us.
Once she hit 6 months old, she started sleeping better if we let her fall asleep by herself, so we let her do just that. We never had to let her cry it out or coax her into sleeping. We could always tell when she was tired, and she always went down without much of a fight.
I wish I had known how good I had it. Those days are gone, long gone.
Instead of going down peacefully, she now plays the sleep game. She isn’t happy lying alone and going to sleep by herself, nor will she fall asleep while being held. No, friends – she wants to be held, and she needs to sleep, but instead of doing the logical thing (are babies ever logical?) and allowing herself to fall asleep, she plays the sleep game.
Picture, if you will, the following scene: I am sitting in the recliner, holding my baby. I’m rubbing and scratching her back, and her eyes grow sleepy. She slowly puts her head down on my chest, closes her eyes, and her body relaxes. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Without warning, POP, up goes her head. She gives a big smile, eyes half closed, and starts rocking back and forth. She reaches for the remote control. She looks around to smile at her dad. She starts jabbeing away. We all smile and think, “What a sweetie. She’s so cute.”
A few minutes later, her eyes grow sleepy again. She slowly puts her head down on my chest again, closes her eyes again, and her body once again relaxes. I again breathe a sigh of relief, thinking, “She’s asleep for sure this time.
Just as I’m confident she’s given in to sleep, her head pops up again.
This scene replays over and over until she’s finally so exhausted that she’ll go to sleep by herself in bed. At first, we thought it was cute. Now, we still think it’s cute, but it’s getting slightly annoying. Soon, we’ll have to come up with a solution to end the pattern.
What sleep games do your babies play?