Baby straight jacket now required for calming/sleep

104 days after Baby M’s birth we’ve reached an interesting point in which we have a couple of certainties. The first of these is that at approximately seven PM the baby becomes a minor screaming demon, the other is that to calm screaming demon down you have to hit her with a series of unexpected calming moves usually culminating with at least temporary swaddling.

What’s really odd about it is usually there’s a smile on her face as I’m gently restraining her. I never would have imagined that babies would appreciate some sort of pre-sleep baby bondage thing but that’s the case.

She’s pretty much outgrown her infant swaddlers, although I will toss her in one for a few minutes to calm her a bit. It’s not horribly small, just a little smaller than I’d want her sleeping in.

But that’s now a comfort move to contain and confine rather than free. Seems a bit backwards to me. But whatever works. I usually can let her free after she passes out, which is coming up on 40 seconds post-swaddle as the record now.

Post swaddle calm down, you can usually do what you want and have a happy baby… well… for a bit…

I’m finding this parenting thing odder, but at least there are a couple of hours a day of a really awesome little baby peeking out between naps and Satan himself attempting to manifest through our child.