Sleeping Soundly

I heard Oliver's wails over the sound of the TV and dashed upstairs to his rescue. I felt sorry for the poor little guy and sad not knowing how long he'd been left in his crib in distress. Since Oliver is such a good sleeper, I don't worry about watching TV at the other end of the house where it's more difficult to hear him. Besides, Chris had already gone to bed in the next room and even sound asleep, Oliver's cries through the thin, uninsulated walls should have woken Chris faster than it took me to notice in the silent lull in between commercials that Oliver was calling for us.

But when I ducked into our bedroom to grab a flashlight so I could search under Oliver's crib for his pacifier, I heard Chris snoring. How could he be still asleep with Oliver screaming in the adjacent room??? With the return of his pacifier and his giraffe and from soothing from mom, Oliver went back to sleep quickly, but was up once more before it remained silent the rest of the night. Chris slept through that distress call too.

I'm envious of how soundly Chris sleeps. So long as I'm sleeping in the same house as Oliver, I wake up when he wakes up. Even on the weekend mornings when Chris jumps out of bed and tries to pluck Oliver out of his crib before I wake up, the goodwill gesture is a lost cause. Not only do I wake up, but I can't go back to sleep. Chris, in contrast, can be up for an entire hour with Oliver, feeding him and playing with him, and when he puts him back down for a nap, can go back to sleep himself for hours. Not fair.

One of the reasons we don't own a baby monitor is that I would never be able to leave it on, as I would never sleep as I listened to every mumble, groan, sigh or crinkle of the mattress coming through the speaker of the monitor. I often wear earplugs to tune out the sounds a baby makes while settling into sleep or moving around during the night. That may sound extreme, but for someone who wakes up after having dreamed the baby was crying or took months to differentiate the cries of the baby next door from the cries of my own, earplugs are a reasonable solution.

Even when Oliver outgrows crying in the middle of the night, uninterrupted sleep still may not be completely achievable. We've also got extremely creeky floorboards. So good luck Oliver trying to sneak in past curfew. Your mom is a light sleeper.