Jo Ryan, a sleep expert from Babybliss, was on the show as well and gave out lots of fantastic advice about settling a baby and therefore get that elusive night’s sleep. We had a really amazing experience.
If you would like to hear the podcast of our interview click here.
After the show was over and our stardom had subsided, I started to think about Kid X’s sleeping and how that was going. Kid X (formerly Kid C) has been generally a great sleeper over the past year*, with only the odd set back here and there. Usually the disrupted sleep lasts a couple of weeks when she is sick then back to normal sleep again after that.
We have always been very strict with our routine and it seems to be working well*. However, we had the weirdest thing happen last night. Kid X awoke when we were getting ready for bed and started to scream. I went in there and did my usual best effort at settling her back down only to have her arch her back and scream even louder.
Wife A then went in and was able to calm Kid X down a little bit and put her down and walked out. However Kid X was in no mood for going back to sleep and started up again. We decided to give her a few minutes to get back to sleep, but no luck.
So I thought I would go back in for some more punishment. In I strutted, picking her up in a way similar to Chris Judd, a quick blind turn then popping her down on the change table I used my nappy changing skills to do the express change. I could tell Kid X was calming down and after the nappy was changed I gave her the biggest cuddle. I sat down on the rocking chair and continued to cuddle her for a few minutes. Then I asked her if she wanted to go back to bed, to which she nodded. I popped her down in her cot, walked out slowly and then silence, golden silence.
I strutted back into the bedroom, oh yeah, who is super dad, how good at this am I? I thought I am doing so well at this parenting stuff at the moment. We all feel asleep.
Whaaaaaaa.... Whaaaaa..... I was jolted awake by Kid X. It was only an hour after we went to bed and she was at it again. I had so much confidence I strutted into the nursery. I tried the same thing I did before but this only made the crying worse. The crying got so much worse that Wife A got up and came in. Now this is the hard part of the article and difficult to admit, but when Kid X saw Wife A in the doorway the crying instantly stopped. So much for superdad I thought as my strut turned into a slouch as I made my way out of the room like I had just been given a red card, and waited for Wife A to put her back to bed.
*Touch wood
