Family Forum / Parenting / Parenting / July 2004

DD at only a couple of weeks off her first birthday had a somewhat
traumatic evening. She has yet another cold and judging by the ear
tugging and drool has some more teeth on the way (currently at 6).

This evening was the first really long one since colic at 6 weeks.

At about 8pm she went to bed with SWMBO after her usual routine of
dinner, shower/bath, clean teeth and go to bed. We were about 30 minutes
late in the routine tonight, but it hadn't been a long exciting day and
she'd dozed a couple of times.

She nodded off and Jo came downstairs, so I restarted the cooking of her
dinner. DD had only been asleep for 15 minutes when some curious sounds
came over the monitor. I headed upstairs to investigate just as the
crying began. I found DD sitting on the floor wide[1] awake and
obviously in the process of working out she'd been left alone. For the
next half hour she pointed out that daddy wasn't a good enough
substitute for mummy and when Jo got upstairs (having wolfed her dinner
down) things calmed down with intermittent grumbles. Much leaving the
room and trying to let Jo go on my part with DD vocally not wanting to
be alone without mum there, I ended up downstairs wincing and listening
to the monitor for over an hour.

Finally Jo's patience and desire to have *some* time to herself let go
and at 22:30 she asked me to come and take over. I came up and turned
off the transmitter side of the monitor to relieve Jo of hearing the
crying that had caused me so much distress while she'd done such long
shifts (as it turns out she turned off the receiver for pretty much the
same reasons). I then resigned myself to a couple of hours being cried
at by (and comforting)an obviously exhausted and distressed little girl.
The first 20 minutes were pretty much what you'd expect, but I sat down
from the cradling/ rocking position to rest my arms for a few minutes.
At that point the protests became distraught crying as loud as they
could be and she wriggled her way down with arched back until she was
lying between my thighs with her feet facing me.

I'd been stroking her back gently and generally ensuring she had tactile
contact all of the time she was distressed, so I automatically reached
out and started rubbing her feet. I adjusted the pressure and moves down
from the kind of high tension squeezes I'd give to an adult, but it was
instinctively the same thing as yo0ur average foot massage. The cries
promptly turned to the sound we've classed as "I'm trying to maintain
that crying noise, but can't manage it when I'm not crying". I moved the
massage to the calf and back to the foot and all the time she got
quieter and calmer. After less than 10 minutes she was asleep. I walked
downstairs at 10:40pm with a few questions.

Did she fall asleep because she was exhausted? (she had been for at
least two hours though)

Was the massage anything but a distraction?

I know what I'm doing with an adult and appreciate that there are a lot
of things I can't do with a baby in terms of massage[3], but are there
any pitfalls to avoid should this prove to be a useful aid?

Is there technique that I don't know that would be more effective? I
stuck with "Happy sounds good. Slight squark means daddy isn't getting
the right bit of calf or foot so, bad"

Warwick -- Not wanting Jo to have to do any more of *those* marathon
sessions

[1] We're co-sleeping and in the interest of DD not falling out of a
bed, the bed is currently disassembled with only the mattress on the
floor.[2]

[2] Yes it is comfortable and reminds me of Japan.

[3] Find any knotted muscles for starters.