Go to sleep!
I do not consider myself a parenting expert. And, not surprisingly, I enjoy mocking those women who do consider themselves parenting experts.
Because, let’s be honest, and, yes, I have said this before, none of us know what we are doing. It is trial and error at best. Though what I love about being a grandparent is all of the fun without the rigorous disciplining. But that is for another story.
After the first five or six weeks after Son #1 was born, when we were questioning whoever wrote that babies are asleep longer than they are awake, he became the perfect baby. The baby that I wished for everyone who I met who was pregnant.
He would sleep (or at least remain quiet) until 10 in the morning. Every morning. It was joyful. He also only smiled and would sit in his stroller during shabbos meals at other people’s homes (yes, we used to get invited out) and our hosts and the other guests were just amazed at his demeanor.
Now, we were the first of our friends to have a baby, and it might have been false advertising if their firstborns were more like Son #2.
Son #2 only slept through the night on the night before his bris. He fooled us good, that one. Months and months of this adorable blue-eyed baby waking up three or four times during the night….while his older brother behaved like a perfect little angel. This is how middle children acquire their reputations…because the older sibling managed to trick their parents into thinking all babies are the same.
And then, you are so strung out after your second that you don’t even remember the milestones that your subsequent children had. Okay, I am making a sweeping generalization, but that is usually what I do.
Though, for example, Matzo Ball had a “cake smash.” Apparently, this has become all the rage. You pay a photographer to get you an overpriced cake and then they take pictures of your one-year-old doing what a one-year old does with a cake.
What does a one-year-old do with a cake?
Well, Son #1 timidly put his face in it and then decided he liked it. Son #2 went all in with his hands and his face. Did Son #3 get a cake? I had to check the photo albums and, yes, he too got a cake and put his face in it.
The cakes were Carvel, the photographer was me, and all was right with the world. Well, not anymore. We have elevated the first birthday cake to something akin to a bar mitzvah. (There I go again, make a sweeping generalization.)
Now let us discuss sound machines. When my kids were little, we put them to bed, turned out the lights, and closed the door. And then just whispered the rest of the night.
This, apparently, is not a thing anymore. Introducing the sound machine.
Your beautiful baby now falls asleep to the sound that sounds like when your TV station went off the air and there was static in the background. Parents swear by it.
This week, I am “helping” my kids out on the Island of Long in Far Faraway (aka Far Rockaway). No, Husband #1 is not with me. Yes, I left him with enough clean underwear, Fanta, and leftovers for days.
Son #1 set up a bed for me in Strudel’s room. Shout out to Son #1 for setting up a real bed, with a frame and boxspring and mattress and linens and pillows (and shout out to DIL #1 for marrying him and making me feel so welcome). Strudel is out of her mind that I am here for sleepovers, even though on the first night she said, “Babka, we can’t talk anymore because I need to go to sleep.” I really love that kid and her sisters.
Anyway, as I am lying in bed at 9:30 trying to fall asleep, as my Advil PM wasn’t kicking in yet, I realize that I am near the ocean and the waves are coming in and out. In and out, big, strong waves.
Wait a second, I am not so close to the ocean that I can hear the waves. And I slowly drifted to sleep….maybe there is something to this sound machine thing!
Of course I had to keep going to the bathroom, but that is another story.
Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck is hoping she is being more helpful than not.
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