MOMENT: Ode to Sleeping Soundly
Every good story must start from the beginning. Since having Tavish, our sleep sucess started with Dr. Harvey Karp's "Happiest Baby on the Block" advice for helping a newborn sleep. Lest we forget that sleep means everything to new parents - remember that for the duration of this tale, please. His system worked for us. We followed the "S"s: swaddle (Tavish had no arms for the first several months of his life), side (he loved it so much, he slept better if he was propped on his side), shhhh (* the starting point of this entry) and swaying. Tom was an expert at all of this. Especially, he was a determined, dedicated and highly effective shusher. Dr. Karp suggested trying to do it as loud as the baby was crying. To be fair, Tavish is a loud crier and one fateful evening after a fair bit of crying (Tavish's mostly) that had been accompanied by a dehydrating amount of shushing from Tom, I heard this ... "noise". Tom discovered my hairdryer and turned it on. It was an instant success - Tavish was mesmerized. Soon, we couldn't live without it. It was our sleep assurance. Don't judge, apparently even eco parents will waste energy for the promise of sleep. So, there was my hairdryer from 1988 in full-time demand. It had seen so little action since the perm of 1990, but it didn't let us down. Well, eventually it did. I won't go into a tale of questionable sounds and harmless sparks, but it eventually was put into the cupboard to be used only in the case of a 'sleep emergency'. A few weeks ago, I found it and nostalgically decided to let it go to its final resting place. From my teenage hair and my early days as a new mother, thank you, "Hot Stuf" (not a typo, it's missing an 'f'). You contributed to my good teenage hair and my mothering patience in those early days. You will always be remembered fondly.
It was oft suggested to us to try static from the radio (yeah, like you can get any of that in Toronto) or some other method of electronic 'shushing'. We tried, we really did. Tom even downloaded a 'hairdryer' sound bite. Didn't work. We needed that hairdryer! However, it wasn't fool-proof at first. Turning it off sometimes meant that Tavish's eyes shot open - ack! So, my industrious hubby put the hairdryer on an extension cord. Ah-hah. We could then sneak into the room, duck with the dryer (haha, if he did wake - he wouldn't know who the culprit was!), crawl out of the room, then turn it off. Voila! That worked, mostly. When we moved to Ottawa we discovered that there was static on the radio so gave it a shot. We could also turn it down slowly without jolting Tavish awake. This system used significantly less power - perfect. Well, almost perfect. We live on a busy street near a traffic light and on more than one occasion, the static shushing was taken over by very LOUD music blaring through the speakers. We were frozen with fear then ran in to see our baby sleeping through it. Huh. Then the music disappeared. It took us a few times to realize that the snippet of heavy metal, country or rap was brought to us by people waiting at the stop light using their ipods on a 'station' of static. Hmmm, there must be something else ...
Enter: humidifier. This was winter so the air really was dry anyway. We found that our stairs and floors upstairs creak loudly and unavoidably. Our wee social one always awoke and was concerned about what he was missing. Sigh, wonder where he gets that? The humidifier served a double purpose: humidying and 'shushing'. Winter turned to spring, the water wasn't filled anymore - we just relied on the humidifier fan. It was perfect and has been embraced into our night and nap time routine. We can walk confidently up the stairs, Tavish sleeps well and it will be very simple to add some water as winter is quickly approaching again. Below is our new humidifier. Yes, the other one bit the dust. More waste. Ugh. But it's so hard to resist sound-full sleeping.
Thank you electricity. Thank you Tom's resourcefulness on finding alternative 'shushing' solutions. Thank you Tavish for sleeping so well. Now you can all sleep well knowing that we are getting the rest we need and that our home will be well-hydrated this winter and all with a side of 'shushing' ambiance. Now that truly is perfect - we really do have the happiest baby AND parents on the block!
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