« Solids and Stripes, pt. 3 | HomePage | Further Thoughts from the Coffeehouse »

February 22, 2006

I Broke the Routine!

A couple of nights ago, I did something kind of stupid. My daughter woke up in the middle of the night crying. The wife and I typically take turns getting up in the night and tending to her, and tonight it was my turn. The baby has been "night-bottle"-free now for several weeks and ordinarily, her middle-of-the-night cry is usually stiffled by repositioning her on her back in the bed, placing her blanket back over her and putting her pacifier back in her mouth.

And so on that particular night, I went through the mental checklist:

Reposition baby: Check!
Blanket: Check!
Pacifier: Check!

And she's still crying. She probably was hurting (she's in the wonderful phase of teething), but it was 3:30 AM so of course, after the checklist is finished, I have no earthly idea what to do next! Why couldn't this have been the wife's night? I thought.

So, I decided right then and there to change her diaper. She must be wet, I thought. Why else would she still be crying?

I consciously am aware that when a child sometimes has difficulty sleeping (or staying asleep) through the night, you shouldn't change her diaper in the middle of the night because it wakes her up completely and triggers her need for a middle-of-the-night bottle. Most diapers can wait until morning. But because I'm an idiot, I completely ignore this logic. And the results turned out as one might expect. Suddenly, she remembers, "Hey! I forgot how good that middle-of-the-night bottle was! How did I ever survive without it??"

Ahhh! I broke the routine! And now, every night for the last three nights, she's been waking up at 4:00 AM every night wanting her "middle-of-the-night" bottle (hereby referred to as MOTN Bottle). Now, we're going through the whole process of winging her off the MOTN bottle all over again. (4 oz for 3 nights, 3 oz for 3 nights, 2 oz for 3 nights, and we're SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!)

Well, as you can imagine, when my wife wakes up for "her turn" at the 4 AM thing, she glances over and just glares at me like, "YOU! You HAD to change her diaper that night, didn't you?? You are such a moron!" And I in turn roll over and pray that the screaming monster in the next room will have mercy on us.

But, ah, sadly, the screaming creature shows no mercy!

16:50 Posted in Fatherhood | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this

Comments

Public apology accepted. Your turn tonight, by the way! :) LOVE YOU!

Posted by: Kristin | February 22, 2006

The joys of parenthood. Wait til she does it when she's 2 and can get out of bed but doesn't really realize that's what she's doing until she's gotten in trouble for it. It went on for 3 weeks. Starting at 4 am every morning and lasted until time to get up. He was getting up every 10 minutes............

Posted by: Laura | February 23, 2006

Hmm, this sounds really familiar. Even though my son Benjamin behaved pretty well, he only went on untill he was like a month old or something. But wait, in 7 weeks, I've got another child coming, and MAN, I'm looking forward to these night shifts.

Hm, I wonder; is it possible to write blog posts while humming to the baby in your lap? :D

Posted by: Mathias | February 23, 2006

I like this post. It vividly paints the in-and-out of a daddy. :-) Have fun changing diapers. :-)

Posted by: issac | February 25, 2006