When I put Little Lady to bed, I try to follow a routine. The routine centers on the amount of communication Little Lady and I have.
Most nights Little Lady will cry for a little bit when we put her down in the crib. If not then, surely she will once Mommy sneaks out of the room (apparently she’s not very sneaky either).
The goal of course is to get her to stop crying. Sometimes this happens from books, sometimes watching some videos, and sometimes just talking. This is when we are communicating the most.
"What's wrong?" "What do you need?" "Why are you crying?" "Why are you screaming every last ounce of air out your lungs?" "Are you suppose to turn that color?"
The answer is always the same regardless the question…
"Mommy!!!!!!"
And so begins the deafness of Daddy. All she wants is her Mommy but Daddy just doesn’t seem to get it… Granted if her Mommy and I attempted a switch, she’d start screaming for Daddy.
Now after she’s calmed down, it’s time to start holding back. If we are watching a video I’ll stop pointing out things in the video. No more: “Oh look, that bunny is swimming in the pool!”
Soon we will have no talking during the videos. And it’ll be time to start backing off the talking between the videos. No more: “What do you want to watch next? Six hours of lullabies for babies?”
All will be quiet, hopefully she is laying down by this point and I start to take longer between videos or “accidentally” pausing the video every now and then to test the reaction.
"Daddy? More?"
Eventually I’ll turn the screen off and hold my breath and cross my fingers and toes that she takes it like a champ.
Tonight there was no crying when the iPhone went dark. It seemed like her sleep was just a few eye flutters away. So I decided to make my escape.
"DADDDYYMOMMMMMMMYDADDDYYYYYY!!!!!!!!"
Enter moment #2 Little Lady is convinced that her Daddy is deaf. Oh I hear her all right. She went on for a bit. Sometimes it tapers off. Sometimes it escalates. The first wasn’t happening so decided to head back in for a little redemption and maybe to head off the escalation.
Worked like a charm. Came back into the room. She immediately laid back down, quiet.
Of course the bedtime endeavor wasn’t quite over yet …
"Daddy? ... Daddy? ... Daddy? ..."
Not upset, actually really quite calm. Almost like she really had a question she just needed to have answered before she could fall asleep. But #3 was here. For some reason Daddy’s deafness always seems to act up around bedtime.
Silence prevailed, though. Shortly after, Little Lady was asleep.
Who knows how long I can keep the silent charade going … once she starts talking full sentences it might be her who has to stop the conversations so Daddy will go to bed.