Our daughter is again playing us like a fiddle with her most recent cry of “one more cuddle” from the night time cot. We generally put her to bed at around 7pm every night where she will play in her cot for an hour or so before drifting off to sleep.
Lately however things have started to happen in that one hour period that force us to go back into her room and reset.
First it was her foot. She kept getting it stuck in the small ‘nappy checking’ hole in her sleeping bag. I think it was by accident the first couple of times but after she discovered that it made us come back into her room it started to happen on a regular basis.
“Alright, no more foot.” we would say. “If it gets stuck again you will just have to live with it.”
“Foot, foot, foot.” she cried the next time but we did not go in. She kept it up for a while and then there was silence.
When we checked later we found her sleeping soundly with her foot sticking out of the sleeping bag. It obviously didn’t bother her that much and funnily enough it doesn’t seem to happen anymore? Curious.
Next it was her stuffed toy octopus ‘Octy’ who developed the unfortunate habit of falling out of the cot. “Octeeeeee” she would cry until we went in to return him to her loving arms.
This also went on for a couple of nights until I walked in on her helping ‘Octy’ to fall out of the cot. “Hmmnn,” I said. “Octy sure falls out of the cot a lot doesn’t he?”
“Yes” she replied sheepishly.
“He better be careful because if he falls out again he will just have to stay there till the morning.”
“Yes.”
Of course he fell out again but as promised we ignored the desperate cries to save him and she managed to fall asleep without him in the cot. He has since gained much better control of all of his limbs and subsequently hasn’t fallen out of the cot for ages.
Finally she has learnt that the best way to get us is through affection. “One more cuddle” is her new night time call and who wouldn’t want a final squeeze from their little bub.
It is pretty hard to ignore that plea and she knows it. We go in and give her a cuddle and then put her back to bed where she will usually settle down for the rest of the night.
So our new night time routine for our bub is bed at 7pm followed by ‘one more cuddle’ at around 7.30pm. We both know that we are being played but it’s worth it to have our little one cling to us one last time before going off to sleep for the night.
We really are suckers….