Waking Up In A Womb

Every morning, I wake up in a womb.  Or at least it sounds like it.

Like many parents, we experienced the typical long nights associated with babies as prescribed by the parenting handbooks.  However, our son took much longer to sleep more over time as prescribed by the infant handbooks.  He was quite fussy and was eventually diagnosed with silent reflux.  When he was first diagnosed with silent reflux, I thought this referred to the type of reflux the doctor was silent about the first dozen times we talked to him about it.  In the end, the silent refers to the absence vomiting which is typically not silent.

But, by the time he was diagnosed we were all in a pattern that seemed impossible to break. For awhile, we bounced his mattress with our hand while shushing.  The shush went something like this: "Shhhhh-sh-sh-sh-sh-Shhhhhh.  Shhhhh-sh-sh-sh-sh-Shhhhhh...."  This worked great except that the transition from shush to no shush had to be done with great skill perfected over many nights.  

After talking to other sleep-deprived parents and former sleep-deprived parents, we learned that white noise calms babies.  One friend (an Inner Humorist reader) suggested that a hair dryer might work.  In that moment, we got a hair dryer and proved this theory correct.  Unfortunately, we couldn't leave a hairdryer on all night.  So, naturally I went online to find a CD of hair dryer noise.  And I found one.  

When the CD arrived, we couldn't wait for the non-sleeping hours to come.  That evening, we put the CD in and it worked like a charm.  That is, it worked like a charm until it faded out.  Even on replay, the fade out and back in was enough to wake my son up.  The silence in those 10 seconds must have been horrible for him given the way he cried.  For a couple weeks, we would run into his room and try to skip the fade out ending so as to reduce the quiet time (if you can imagine that).  Eventually, we learned to let him "cry it out" and he eventually got over it.  The hairdryer CD has since been replaced with a humidifier with a loud fan.

But, the CD only helped for awhile and we needed a new strategy.  Therefore, we incorporated a sound machine (a gift from another Inner Humorist reader) and after seagulls, wind, and clanging buoys, we discovered that the sound of the womb was my son's favorite song.  He's now 3.5 years old and the womb is still an integral part of his nighttime ritual.  We continue to use monitors in their rooms, so the sound of the womb can be heard in our room also.

The sound of the womb puts me to sleep each night and wakes me up each morning.  Although I don't know what it's like to be in a womb, despite my nine months residency in one before I was evicted, I sometimes imagine that I'm waking up in one.  I think that if I could locate that old hairdryer CD, my experience will be complete.  Except that I won't cry all night.