Adam Kuban: Kublog

Margot falls asleep on a recent evening while listening to my New Wave Nights mix.

I probably shouldn’t post this because I’m afraid I’ll jinx it, but guess who slept through the night last night? If you said Margot, I’ll give you partial credit. The full answer is Margot AND HER PARENTS.

A couple weeks ago she started sleeping longer and longer, first for 4-hour stretches, then for 5. Apparently they’re able to snooze longer as they get bigger because their stomachs hold more food and they don’t need to wake up to feed. THANK GOD FOR GROWING STOMACHS.

This morning I heard the usual grunting and squawks coming from her co-sleeper. I did what I normally do: reach for my phone and check the time* … WHAT!?! SIX FIFTEEN A.M.?!? We put her down at 9 last night. NINE SOLID HOURS? Of course I assumed that Claire just let me sleep through the usual 3am feeding. But no. THIS IS THE TRUTH.

That’s not to say we’re out of the woods, but there’s been a slow and steady progression. And of course, there’s the possibility of the “four-month sleep regression”, which she’s coming up on.

I have mixed feelings on this. I’ll enjoy getting a better night’s sleep, of course, but I think I might miss spending time rocking the little bean to sleep in the wee hours.

A note about the picture above: Claire took that earlier this week during the “witching hour,” a period of the day when babies often don’t want to go down for a nap or sit in their bouncer or their My Little Snugabunny, which takes up half their parents’ living room and oh, God, why did we buy it if you WON’T SLEEP IN IT.

Anyway, Margot’s witching hour is usually from 5 to 7pm, and the only thing that keeps her happy is if you hold her and walk around with her. You can’t just hold her and rock quietly in the glider. You can’t hold her and stand contemplatively at the window looking at people on the street below. No, you have to hold her AND BOUNCE AROUND. (Side note: I remember reading someone write once about “that gentle swaying bounce that automatically marks a person as a parent”—or something like that; I totally get that now.)

Luckily, I found that the witching-hour hold session can be combined with music appreciation. Her mother plays her Billy Joel in the mornings. So I’ve taken to playing her a mix of New Wave classics at night when nothing else consoles her. As Claire put it, “My daughter fell asleep dancing with her dad to Erasure. Compliment or insult to Erasure?”

NB: I love the fact that Andy Bell was a meat-packing-plant worker when he answered Vince Clarke’s ad looking for a singer. Also, this video is such a literal interpretation of the lyrics as to be hokey. (Also look for the Depeche Mode reference around 2:50.)

* To calculate how much sleep I’d be able to get between obscenely-early-morning feeding and early-morning feeding. There are all sorts of factors to take into consideration: how long she feeds, her burping time, how long it takes to rock her back to sleep…