The return trip had been booked
for Saturday night to give us a day to recover on Sunday. This was just as well
since the holiday had turned out to be so tiring that I was rather looking forward
to my ten-hour days at work and the once-a-night wakeup routine. It seemed more
relaxing!
On the way back, we decided to
play it safe. Bobo slept off at his usual time as per routine. Then with the
sound levels of a bunch of robbers stealing into a house in the middle of the
night, we left for the airport and successfully reached the gate. Unfortunately
a last minute redirection to a new gate, accessible by only one elevator meant
a long wait, jostling unruly crowds and finally an awake Bobo.
Our struggles with Bobo’s sleep
may make it seem like we are rank amateurs and don’t have a clue about Bobo’s
routine or how to put him to sleep.
This is partly true. We don’t
spend quite enough time during the daytime to be comfortable with putting him
to sleep.
Besides, Bobo’s routine is sort
of stable but not entirely so. And when you are travelling across time zones,
it gets messed up even more. Bobo also goes to sleep following a routine that
looks like we are trying to violently kill him off. It involves covering him
with a thin muslin blanket and producing our own ‘white noise’ by saying
‘Ooooo’ loudly and continuously as he registers his protest at being forced to
sleep by wailing loudly. This is clearly not an action that can be reproduced
in public. So we were forced to use untested methods throughout the trip with
mixed success.
This time though, D had had
enough. Once inside security, he went right ahead doing our conventional ‘yelling
like a banshee’ method. I sat and squirmed a few seats away, acutely conscious.
Except it turned out no one batted an eyelid and could not care less.
Bobo fell asleep.
Once in the plane, we took no
chances with the bassinet. Instead I held him and both of us slept quite ok.
When we landed, it was bright and
early and morning.
We took a cab home where I
deposited Bobo into the eager hands of my Helper and then finally slept like a
baby.
1 comment:
LOL on yelling like a banshee method!!! We used to have something similar (but without the yelling) for Ads :) Sanjay is the sleep expert for us- or used to be - I agree that is something that comes with lots of practice.
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