Good vibrations or Vibrating babies

J's sentence for the day: "Orange tastes better" in reference to eating Easter eggs.

So I've decided as part of my, umm, springtime resolutions (?), I'm going to ditch the song lyrics as blog post titles thing. I know, I know, only like two of you were even aware I was using song lyrics as titles most of the time (tg and mtg, I think you were the only ones), but, just the same, I am letting the rest of you know I am moving on to a new chapter in blogging, one in which I get to use titles like "vibrating babies," which is great!

Once upon a time not so very long ago in a faraway land that looked remarkably like this one, we tried to get Toddler J to sleep on his own. Our (mostly fruitless) efforts were chronicled (in far too much detail) on this blog, and we won't rehash them now. Except to point out that during our battle, we bought many products that we thought might help, almost all of which did not help in the least or at least did not help appreciably enough or fast enough to satisfy sleep-deprived me. Several of those products were returned; many were not.

Fast forward to now. I have a new little boy who would really love to sleep, pretty much anywhere, but can't. Once upon a time, he was a good little sleeper, but then the reflux came ("the" reflux, said as they say "the diabetes" here in the South) and his sleeping game began. First, we tried (reluctantly) the swing, which he tolerated but didn't really love just yet. Then we tried a propped up mattress in the pack-n-play, which worked not at all, and he ended up squished in a ball each night, breathing into his swaddled cocoon. So, ineffective AND unsafe. Not the right direction. Then we tried his infant car seat, with disastrous results. (He does NOT like that car seat under the best of circumstances and Mommy hitting his head on the bar in the middle of the night was not the best of circumstances.) Intermittently and increasingly in the midst of all this, E would end up in bed with me, cradled in one arm and being vigorously rocked to relax him and take his mind off his painful digestion. Finally, in desperation, I put our baby papasan in his pack-n-play to get him at the recommended 30 degree angle without slipping to an uncomfortable almost death.

Our papasan has a vibrating feature, and E seemed to enjoy that quite a bit, often falling asleep in the chair when I put him in it while I was showering (it used to live in the bathroom), but when the vibrating stopped, he often woke up. Then I remembered a device we'd bought for J that was designed to make a crib mattress vibrate via controls on the side of the crib and a device placed under the mattress. I unearthed this little number and found it has a feature that automatically causes it to vibrate when baby cries. And putting this gem underneath the papasan has led to our most successful sleeping arrangement thus far. E spent all of last night in his new makeshift sleeping area, not once crying hard enough to make me rescue him OR ending up in a pile at the bottom of the bed OR ending up smothered under his blanket. Huzzah!

I know enough to know that these "victories" are fleeting and never as easy as they seem, so I'm just going to be cautiously optimistic and grateful for the longer night's sleep last night. Happy Birthday to me!