My One Secret Method for Getting Babies to Sleep
May 01, 2011, By Andy Brooks 0 comments
My wife thinks every dad should be really good at cooking breakfast food, specifically pancakes, waffles and French toast. I agree, but I think the most important skill a dad can acquire is efficiently getting his kids to sleep. That’s what I focused on, and, though I told myself it was for my kids, maybe it was at least a little for myself. I figured if the kids slept when they were supposed to they would be well rested, and I would be free to sleep, watch TV or whatever.
My first shot at parenting came with our twin sons, Jack and Teddy, who are now two. The first few months of their lives were pretty tough, with feedings every three hours, which meant after feeding, burping, changing and getting them back to sleep, we were at best left with about an hour or so before we had to start over with the next feeding. This was naturally much harder on my wife than on me since I wasn’t the one doing the feeding, but I tried from very early on to get good at getting the boys back to sleep quickly to give us a break, particularly at night.
I got to where I had a rhythm for each twin. Both liked to be rocked. One preferred being cradled in my arms and patted on the butt to the beat of nursery rhymes. The other liked resting upright against my chest and being patted on the back to the rhythm of James Taylor’s greatest hits.
This method worked great for the first few weeks, and then crisis struck. We went through a week or more when they both cried hysterically from about 7 p.m. to midnight. JT and Mother Goose couldn’t crack this one. And so we suffered through it. I was pretty crushed. In the short time they had been alive, I’d begun to take pride in my ability to calm them and get them back to sleep quickly. Whatever skills I thought I had clearly weren’t all that great.
After the week or so of crying and screaming every evening, Jack and Teddy calmed down, and we settled back into our rocking routine, but my image of myself as Wonder Dad had been shattered.
