In my pre-parental days, I scoffed with great abandon at the whole baby gadget industry, aimed at making a fast buck off of tired, overwhelmed parents. Buy Buy Baby, Toys r' Us, and Parent Magazine were all in cahoots with toy, stroller, and food manufacturers to deepen their coffers and take advantage of poor Mort and Milly Homemaker. Parents weren't let off of the hook entirely, either. In fact, I believed that parents were equal partners in the whole con, eager themselves for fast, trendy, and/or easy solutions to domestic life. I mean, butt wipe warmers...really? And have you seen the price tag on a bugaboo? I may be gay, but I refuse to shell out my money on that bourgeois baby status symbol.
The joys (and perils) of parenthood have given me a great deal of perspective, and while I am still categorically against butt wipe warmers (yes, Peanut was subject to a wet, cold backside after diaper changes...signal the gasp of disbelief) I am no longer averse to availing myself of some of the benefits of modern parenting.
For us, this took the form of a sleep specialist (no, there is no bugaboo in my future). Peanut has been waking almost nightly at 3am since January. As a child who was sleep trained from around 3 months, and who has no problem putting herself to sleep at bed time, we were at a loss as to what to do. I was occasionally offered the platitude, "It's just a phase - she'll grow out of it", which is at best annoying and at worst condescending and smug. Then a friend suggested we consider contacting a sleep specialist - which I almost dismissed immediately. On second thought, however, we both decided it had gotten to the point that we needed help (if you have seen me hissing out "sssh" at 3am, then you have a really clear idea as to why help was needed).
We were lucky to get a referral from an old friend and coworker (via Facebook, an invaluable networking tool for the modern multitasker), and I wrote a very dramatic cry of help letter, that most definitely included the words "we are at the end of our rope". The kind of letter they read on "Dear Genevieve" or "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" before the big reveal. The specialist replied promptly, requesting additional information about Peanut's sleep habits and schedule, and we set a time for our first phone consultation the next day.
As luck (or cruel fate) would have it, that night Peanut decided to remind me exactly why we needed a specialist by throwing a party in her crib from 12:30-2:30am. She also did a bit of "crib redecorating" as Hubby calls it - which is essentially transferring everything that is currently in her crib (blanket, pillow, and stuffed animals) to the floor. Great fun.
So imagine my surprise when the sleep specialist said that upon reviewing our information, she believes Peanut is actually a great sleeper, and that there are kids (and parents) much worse off than she is. After a somewhat enjoyable moment of parental schadenfreude, we had a really great conversation about Peanut's night waking and came up with some tools to address it. Best of all, she listened and didn't give us the party line "it's just a phase", which frankly was beginning to drive me up a wall. I think we all walked away feeling hopeful - at least I did.
That feeling lasted approximately 5 hours - and shattered into a million tiny fragments when Peanut decided to wake up for tonight's party at 9:45pm. This is going to be a long night.
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