Thursday, December 2, 2010

Maggie... the calculating baby genius

Maggie has been a champion sleeper since the day she was born, when in a near panic I asked the doctor if I should wake her up to feed her because she was sleeping for so long, and had the hospital's neo-natal specialist laugh at the question.

Last night, however, sleep wasn't part of her agenda.

Usually I put her down in her crib and she falls asleep on her own while we say our family prayers in the girls' room.

Not last night. She fussed for over an hour (I believe one of those teeth that I can feel right under the surface of her gums is bothering her), breaking down in full-out hysterics (that amazingly enough didn't wake her sister) several times. Finally I called Paul up from downstairs, where he was taking a practice LSAT test, and asked him to take a break for a few minutes to try to see if she'd do any better with him.

She didn't. However, after a few minutes of walking back and forth between our room and the girl's room trying to calm her down, he asked her a question: "Maggie, honey, what is it you want."

She stopped screaming. And then...We were both shocked when she took her little not-yet-five-month-old hand and pointed with her index finger directly at our bed. My first words were "there's no way she could be doing that on purpose, could she?" Paul decided to test the theory.

"Okay Mags, there you go." He lay her down on the middle of our king sized bed... and she started to giggle, uncontrollably. She proceeded to lay on our bed and giggle for about five minutes before falling fast asleep.

Seriously?!?!

Paul's take: "I think she just manipulated us!"

I think so too! And she's not quite five months old yet!

I have to say I was so glad that she'd stopped crying that I let her sleep in the big bed. For one night. Hopefully tonight won't be such a battle... particularly since she got her way last night!

This morning she is back to being her normal giggling baby self. Now if only we could get her sister to sleep until 7!

5 comments:

  1. Wow...That's funny...well of course more funny for me who wasn't dealing with an upset baby for a while...but funny how the simplest thing that we wouldn't think of could work...God Bless you in your efforts tonight!

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  2. I guess we never give little people enough credit,do we? Maggie knew what she wanted (or maybe the little tooth had just quit giving her fits long enough to relax and go on to sleep)! You were asking about ideas to celebrate Advent with your family, and I just found this over at Stories from the Shoebox. Checkout this link for some cute ideas: http://www.storiesfromtheshoebox.com/2010/12/week-one-hope.html
    Glad Miss Maggie is back to her usual self!

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  3. Babies are amazing. You should find out from both of your parents how fast of a learner you both were. My little boy is almost 3 weeks old and this morning he rolled over from his tummy to his back. I'm very surprised but my parents did warn me last week to be careful. They say that because I started walking at 8 months and was potty trained by 15 months. I also quickly became a climber and master escape artist. I was a very determine baby and I suspect my little boy will be too. Not to mention, I got my newborn baby brother out of his crib at nap time (we're 17 months apart) and proceeded to drag him outside by his feet so we could play. My mom was trying to sell something over the phone for her home business, but when I dragged my brother past she screamed, "my baby!", dropped the phone and ran after me.

    Keep an eye out, babies are smarter than we think. You may also want to incorporate some basic ASL (real sign language not the baby version - so it can be interpreted by anyone who knows ASL) to bring along communication. Just simple words like "more", "hungry", "mommy", and "daddy". Basically, whatever words get used the most.

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  4. Actually, I'm surprised that you two have not already done the family bed thing. We let all seven of ours sleep with us until they were ready for their own bed, which was usually around the time the next baby was due. I have had no complaints over that arrangement.

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  5. Don't feel manipulated... I think she just communicated with you in an amazing way! Most babies can't tell you what they want so early(or maybe don't have parents that ask or listen!) Certainly very unusual.

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