Papoose on the loose

This is a letter I wrote to my neighbor, Marilyn, explaining how much I appreciated her baby gift! :)

Marilyn,

I’ve been blessed with a pretty good baby – she has started to sleep about 6-7 hours at a stretch at night, and she takes good naps during the day. She’s not fussy, she eats good, and most of the time she is basically a happy girl.

Except for one time. And I have to tell you that story! I actually thought about messaging you on Facebook to tell you right away when it happened, but I was too tired.

The reason I was too tired, was it was 5:00 a.m., the second night Karity and I were home from the hospital. We weren’t just getting up – we were still up! Neither of us had slept all night. She was crying. I was crying. We were about to go wake Daddy and see if he would cry with us. We were a disaster. I’m really not sure what I was doing wrong, but I guess I didn’t have anything figured out yet, and I was probably so nervous I was keeping her awake by being a new, nervous mommy!

However, about the 25^th time I tried to put her down to sleep, and she would sleep for about 30 seconds, and then flail her little arms and then wake herself up and cry, I was beside myself. I was so exhausted nothing was making sense. I remember looking at her and saying, “Karity, Mommy really needs you to go to sleep right now,” and her looking back at me with wide open, awake eyes and I’m pretty sure she said, “I’m really sorry Mommy, but I’m not going to do it.”

At that point, I had almost a “vision” of you telling me at my baby shower how Alivia was such a fussy baby, and how Jurgen would wrap her up tight in a swaddle and rock her back and forth. And, I remembered your shower gift and literally jumped up and went to her closet and grabbed the little green swaddle, and tore off the packaging!

I was like, “Honey, I love you, and now you’re going in the straight jacket!”

I put her in it, Velcroed her little arms to her sides, and put her back in her bassinet. It was like putting a twitch on a horse. The lights went out. Baby went to sleep. Mommy went to sleep. There was peace in the valley.

I have to say she really, really does not like it nearly as much as Mommy likes it, but I put that swaddle on her every night. She is really strong and she grunts and groans like a little Sampson tearing down the pillars to get her arms loose so she can have her fists up by her mouth – and sometimes she succeeds (which, even though we have to start all over, I’m actually kind of proud of her because she works so hard at getting free!). But, if she is not in it, she jerks and jumps her arms so bad she can’t sleep, so we keep putting her in it. It has probably been one of the most used gifts I've received.

Karity might not be a fan, but Mommy definitely is, and we all get a LOT more sleep because of it!

Thank you. Very. Very. Much.

Love,

Tamara and Karity (aka, "The Ferocious Houdini")

I know ... it's tight. But I promise this is the only way she would sleep
without "escaping," which, in the end, made Mommy AND baby happier!