Today the baby wouldn't eat her soup. She was too tired. I don't know how she could have been too tired because we both slept in, and something of the hierarchy of the household can be deduced from observing the sleeping positions of the inhabitants; baby, luxuriating across the middle of the bed; me, slipping down the crack between the wall and the mattress with a bare corner of pillow; Lynne, up and getting ready for work.
Of all the things in the baby's life, whether or not she goes to sleep is the only one over which she has any real control, so it is odd that it is the most problematic. She likes to sleep on her stomach but she has also recently discovered how to sit up from this position too. This means that when I put the sleepy baby in her cot, she immediately rolls over onto her belly, which is good, but then she pushes herself upright and cries because she can't sleep like that. It's really silly.
She is asleep now. I got her to sleep by spooning her. We lay on the bed and I closed my eyes so she couldn't make eye contact, breathed in and out as loudly and slowly as I could, in the hope that this would be soothing, and pinned her down with one arm across her chest. She struggled for a bit, then started rubbing her eyes, then her breathing slowed, and she was gone. I then gently moved her into her cot and crept out of the room. It all took about twenty minutes. What a carry on.
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