Are you looking for a way to get your baby to go to sleep (and stay asleep) when they do not want to be asleep?
You probably won’t find one.
However, if you want to know how to get your baby to stay in bed long enough for you to have a glass of wine; here is how to do it in 10 easy steps.
1. The routine
It is vitally important that you establish a consistent bedtime routine that is routinely consistent at bedtime. The baby will consistently not go to sleep at bedtime, but at least you have an established routine.
2. Hope
It is essential that you put your baby down in the cot drowsy but awake. Then wait for her to scream because you put her down drowsy but awake! Pick up non-drowsy wide-awake baby and hope you can get her back asleep.
3. Begging
Following extensive shushing, singing, rocking, feeding and trying to get your baby to sleep by whatever means necessary, try to appeal to her softer side. Do not be too proud to beg your baby to go to sleep (exhausted tears of frustration optional).
‘Please go to sleep. Have mercy on my tired soul. Please, please go to sleep. PLEASE!!’
4. Bribery
Continue with stages 1 and 2 until you start to think about enjoying a glass of wine. Time for extreme measures. Attempt to bribe your baby to go to sleep.
‘You can lick my phone and I won’t stop you. Those delicious looking bits-of-crap on the floor you have had your eye on? They are ALL yours. But only if you GO TO SLEEP.’
5. Threats
No more Miss Nice Mummy. Wine o clock has been and gone and now all you want to do is to go to bed. Time to tell your baby who is boss.
‘If you do not go to sleep right now, I have a Gina Ford book and I am not afraid to use it.’
The baby smiles up at you. They can smell an empty threat a mile off.
6. Reinforcements
Tell your partner it is his ‘bloody turn.’ Give him the baby and head for the wine. After one gulp and five minutes of continuous screaming, angrily retrieve the baby from partner. Spend the next ten minutes considering whether partner never being able to get the baby to sleep is good enough grounds for divorce.
7. Give up.
You need the loo, your lullabies have turned into a creepy monosyllabic droning noise and your back aches. Retreat to the living room. Put baby down with her toys. Baby immediately screams.
Pick baby up. Screaming stops. Sit down with baby. Baby screams. Repeat three times.
Now you are screaming. ‘What do you want from me?’
Your bundle of joy doesn’t want to be asleep; she wants to be awake. But only in a dark room with you. Therefore, you can either stand up holding a screaming baby in the living room, or stand up holding a baby who is not screaming in the bedroom.
You go back to the bedroom.
8. Pray
The good news is your baby is now asleep! The bad news is – she is asleep on you. At this stage is it essential that you do not attempt The Cot Transfer too soon. If baby is anything less than almost comatose you will be back to square one.
Dear God, If you really exist, I imagine you have better things to do. But if you could make my baby stay asleep I will start going to church every Sunday (except next Sunday when I am busy- and come to think of it, I’ve got a weekend break coming up next month. Actually, how about we make it every other Sunday?) Amen.
9. Google
Thanks to Google, parenting advice is available 24 hours a day. This is a good time to type in ‘how to get a baby to go to sleep and stay asleep when they do not want to be asleep?’ You won’t find the answer but you can enjoy reading about all the things you are doing wrong.
9. Trickery
Only when you are so tired you can barely stand should you proceed to the final stage. Pretend To Be Asleep No Matter What is not for the faint hearted. Bring your baby into your bed and close your eyes. Fake snoring is recommended. The baby will try to rouse you from ‘slumber’ using various techniques such as hair-pulling, nose biting, head climbing, cute singing and the ever-popular trying to prise open your eyelids, but you must maintain the façade of being asleep. Your baby should eventually fall into a deep slumber.
Do not move. Do not cough. Do not even think about putting the baby in her cot. Simply lay still and enjoy the comfort of balancing precariously on the edge of the bed while trying not to breathe too loudly.
MORE : 23 things only sleep deprived parents will understand
MORE : 22 confessions of a sleep deprived mum
MORE : 15 things no one tells you about your boobs after you have a child
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