Sleeping Time For Sara

Putting Sara to sleep during those early months was quite a challenge. Mad Cat and I will have to take turns to carry the crying baby to sleep. But the bright side of it, she hardly wakes up for night feed. Once she turned 3 months or so, putting her to sleep was a breeze.

Every night, Mad Cat will play with her while I take my bath. Occasionally, I can hear a little squeal follow by her laughter in the next room. When its time for bed, Mad Cat will read her stories from her mini library which are books we bought during MPH sales. When she gets too tired for story time, Daddy will SOS Mummy to the rescue for her night feed. It will be then a ‘Mummy-and-Baby’ time.

After the feed, we will both lie side by side facing each other on her super single mattress. She will automatically pop her two favorite fingers in her mouth to suck (I can never answer to the question as to why my baby never suck her thumb) while her other hand will reach out to grab my nose, pinch my cheek and pull my hair, with me singing to her.

As I sing, she will hum along with her two fingers in her mouth, as if she is singing along with me. Once she gets really sleepy, she will turn face down and rub her face on the mattress for several times. It’s a habit of hers since she was about 5 months old. When she first started this little ‘compress-face-rubbing’ (as I called it) I was worried that she might flatten her little nose. There was once Mad Cat imitated her by rubbing his face on the mattress just to see how she would react. She watched intensely, smiled at her Daddy and followed after him. Both father and daughter did that for several times. It was quite comical to see that.

Once she is done with the her ‘facial’ rub, she will turn her body to her side, pull her shoulders as far back as possible and place both her hands at the back of her with her tummy protruding on the other side.

Little Miss Yeoh will then fall fast asleep in that very odd position. I have tried many times to re-adjust her bodily parts once she is asleep but she tends to move back in that position. I supposed Sara found that position works for her. I then gave up and left her to sleep in any position she’s comfortable with so long as she does not twist her arm or shoulders.

Most of the night I will have to mentally dig for songs and nursery ryhmes that I have learned when I was in Sunday School and kindergarten. There are times when I happened to forget the lyrics, I will either hum the tune or fill it with my own words. But Sara doesn’t seem to mind that her Mommy can’t sing a good tune or have lyrics that don’t rhyme. Most importantly, my singing can put her to sleep :)

Mommy the Alicia Keys in Wonderland.