Baby Saves Family's Lives With Nighttime Crying
For parents of new babies,
crying at night is a tolerated, but oft dreaded, part of the gig. But
for one family in Colorado, they will likely never hate to get up with
their crying baby again. Without those cries, this family likely would
have perished in a house fire.
Having gone through two baby-hoods and all the late night wake-ups
that came with them, I am very familiar with the frustration (and the
joy and the love) that comes from having a baby. I was also lucky enough
to never have a house that burned down (knock wood), but if this
happened to me, you better believe I would look at those 1 a.m. wake-ups
a little differently.
Maybe we all can learn a little something here.
Having a baby is difficult for any new mom. It can be very easy, in the moment, to get swept into resentment or anger or frustration over our babies and our lack of sleep. But don't throw the baby out with the bath water (literally).
When it comes down to it, every moment we have with our babies is precious. Even those moments you would rather not have at 2:07 a.m. when you were in a deep sleep, dreaming of Patrick Dempsey.
There were times after my son (who was a bad sleeper) was born where I would hallucinate bugs on the wall and sob out of sheer exhaustion.
Now, 3.5 years later, he is an awesome sleeper. I couldn't ask for a better sleeper, in fact. If I had known then how finite those moments were, I would have cursed them less and cuddled him more.
They are so fleeting, those midnight wake-ups. Even though they feel interminable in the moments, they pass by so quickly. No one likes to be awakened from a deep slumber, but let's put it in perspective. That crying baby could actually save your life! And even if he doesn't, at the very least, he won't cry forever. He will soon be big and you will miss these days. I promise.
Do you get upset when your baby wakes you?
I'll admit, I get super irritated when one of my kids wakes me up at night. But I get up and make sure they're okay, I don't leave them to cry.
Once they hit 12 months, if they're not sleeping all night, I get majorly annoyed. My 20 month old just started getting up at night again plus he's up for the day at 5:30am :-(
I get more annoyed when the dogs wake me up than when the kids do and two weekends ago, I was grateful my dog woke me up.
I was home alone-first time in 8 years of being a mom-while the kids and dh were away at scout camp and about 4 in the morning my dog woke me up. I thought, you have got to be kidding me. I don't want to get up to take you out but got up. Instead of going to the door though, she stopped by the living room and that's when I heard it-my smoke detector chirping. The battery needed replaced. The other dog hid in my closet-which I did comment on as I was getting up and when I got downstairs, I realized why he was hiding.
So while it wasn't a fire, I can say I was really grateful for the wakeup call cause it proved that if there is a fire and I don't hear the smoke detectors (we have at least 13 of them in our home) she will wake us up.
My hubby takes care of our son if he wakes at night. I usually never hear him. And we have a monitor. I'm a really heavy sleeper.
Yes I do, but since I work midnights I'm asleep during the day and there is zero reason they can't ask their Dad instead of waking me up
Quoting SabrinaLC:I'll admit, I get super irritated when one of my kids wakes me up at night. But I get up and make sure they're okay, I don't leave them to cry.
Once they hit 12 months, if they're not sleeping all night, I get majorly annoyed. My 20 month old just started getting up at night again plus he's up for the day at 5:30am :-(
- Cafe Amber
on Feb. 15, 2012 at 9:51 AM