Teething & The Happy Song
Quite the night in the life
C is a late bloomer when it comes to her teeth. She’ll be 11 months old next week and has one, almost two, teeth. I’m certainly not complaining, given that I only recently stopped nursing. Up until a few weeks ago, we couldn’t credibly blame a sleepless night on teething. We’d wait weeks, and no tooth would cut through her little pink gums. But this Memorial Day weekend, her gummy smile revealed a second tooth about to erupt right next to the first, C’s swollen gum rising to the level of the first tooth. Other than the swelling, her naps were shit and she drooled up a storm. The nights weren’t too bad — we can withstand the 4:30 am wake-up — up until Monday night. The cherry on top of a childcare-free past four days, C was awake, essentially inconsolable, from 9 pm until 2 am.
The middle of the night feels like some sort of vortex, a liminal space in which time both ceases to exist and in which each five minutes feels like a whole hour. The first hour went like this: whine, ba ba ba, wa wa wa, whine, sit up, continue whining, five minutes pass, whining escalates to crying, which then stops after a couple minutes, but only for 30 seconds, then the crying continues, this repeats ten times, and then it escalates further.
Me: What should we do?
Jonathan: I can go in there.
Me: But what if she calms down?
Jonathan: I don’t think that’s happening.
Jonathan leaves our bed and walks the 10 steps to C’s room. I hear through the monitor, “hiiiii squish, what’s wronggggggg?” as he picks her up and lets her head fall on his shoulder. “Shhhh shh shh shh shh shhhh shhh shhhhh [repeat too many times to type].”
10 minutes pass. 15. Jonathan reenters our bedroom.
Jonathan: Ok, I think she’s down. She’s definitely tired and fell asleep instantly.
Two minutes later. We hear crying on the monitor. It escalates. We let it go for as long as our hearts can take. 10 minutes maybe. Time isn’t real. We even turn the monitor off because, with the monitor, we hear double crying — the actual cry coming from her room, followed by the delayed cry through the monitor. I can feel my desire to control creep in, reaching into the depths of my brain to uncover what the sleep trainer told us to do months ago, all while knowing no amount of training will help an uncomfortable teething baby sleep soundly.
Me: Should we try to feed her?
Jonathan: I guess. I can go in there and you can make the bottle?
Feeding her was a disaster. It caused more screaming. She fell asleep again on Jonathan’s shoulder. We put her down again and she woke up instantly. This happened four or five more times. We’re in hour two now.
I stopped breastfeeding a few weeks ago, so I decide to see if I can fake her out. I sit with her on her rocker, stick my boob in her mouth, she sucks for a second, but before she realizes nothing but tiny drops come out, I do the switcharoo between my nipple and the bottle. It works. I’m praising God. There is hope.
She falls asleep for a few more minutes, but wakes up instantly when I try to put her down. She screams. I call for Jonathan, yet again. His shoulder is the only way. He rocks her and soothes her, and she falls asleep again on his shoulder. But then wakes up — yet again — when he tries to put her down. This repeats. We decide to see if she’ll settle on her own and we leave her room. I start to feel my own tooth pain. A dull ache in my gums on the left side of my mouth. Phantom teething pain because we are just that connected?
The crying doesn’t stop. I’m looking at the monitor, see her thrashing about in her crib. Butt in the air pose, waving her arms as she lifts her body, only to fall back down dramatically. She’s just so uncomfortable. Visibly in pain despite the Motrin. Her little body. I start crying. It’s too painful for me to watch. I suggest to Jonathan, “why don’t we just switch off every hour so we can each get a little sleep?” This suggestion sounds absurd as it comes out of my mouth, but I’m desperate. I go into her room, pick her up, and she stops crying while lying on my shoulder. But she’s 20+ pounds and my back starts to hurt after a while. I think, “Maybe if she’s in our bed, she won’t cry. Maybe she just wants to be around us. Maybe our presence alone would soothe her and we can all sleep.” I wish.
Still, I brought her into our bed and wished with my whole body and soul that she’d fall asleep while cuddled against me. I wouldn’t sleep due to fear of rolling over and smushing her, but that would be ok if her warm body is against mine and my nose has a constant stream of the smell of her head.
Predictably, this isn’t what happens. Instead, she screams, now in our ears, when I try to put her on our bed. I crawl into bed next to her and do the itsy bitsy spider movements with my hands to get her attention. It works for about a minute and then the crying begins again. I sing You Are My Sunshine, Old MacDonald, and Wheels on the Bus. I ask whether something else is wrong. Should we take her to the emergency room? My intrusive thoughts run wild and I will spare you, readers.
Jonathan suggests music. Oh, my sweet, sweet husband. I don’t think I’ve ever loved you more than in the moment when you pressed play on Imogen Heap’s The Happy Song and the crying suddenly stopped.
Heap’s absolutely brilliant (and catchy) song was based on the sounds parents use to make their babies happy. At the time C&G Baby Club commissioned the song, Heap’s daughter Scout was nearly two and could serve as her lead collaborator. Just like Scout, C instantly calms when she hears the Happy Song. She stopped crying and lay silently on my bed, her head next to mine, and her feet popping up and down in her sleep sack.
Next up: Charlie Hope. I ask Jonathan, “Does Charlie Hope have a lullaby album?” Of course she does.
And, if you have young kids or babies, I highly encourage you to explore Charlie Hope’s other bangers. Truly bangers.
As Charlie Hope plays, I turn my head to my left to stare at my sweet girl’s face, a simple silhouette in our dark room. I lightly trace her profile with my finger, knowing she is not asleep. With the music soothing her, I hear her breathe, the air traveling loudly between her constant daycare congestion, which bothers me more than it does her. I am overwhelmed with love as I try to make out the shape of her eyes, whether they’re open or closed, in the darkness. I feel my unrealistic desire to make sure nothing bad ever happens to her, and at the same time as the overwhelming love, I feel the overwhelming fear of what ifs, knowing I can’t protect her forever.
At some point, C discovers that if she reaches behind her head and runs her nails along our bed frame, she can make a scratching sound. She does this continuously, without any intention to stop. I grab her hand and tell her, “Ok, no more.” She laughs. And then does it again. I grab her hand, “no more.” She laughs. Then does it again. The pattern repeats and with each “no more” she giggles harder. Now I’m laughing. And Jonathan is laughing. “She thinks this is a game,” he tells me. But I continue to make her laugh. The three of us, laughing in bed, after midnight. Time ceases to exist.
Now close to 1:30 am, we’ve accepted the fact that C is not falling asleep in our bed. She wants to play, but as cute as that may be, I have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a 7 am zoom call to discuss SEC and CFTC regulations. Cool cool cool. We decided to try milk again (since it had been hours since we last fed her) so she could hopefully drift off into a milk-induced dreamland. Finally, (and I had to ask Jonathan about this part since, apparently, I blacked out) calm after an hour or more of the Happy Song and Charlie Hope songs, close to 2 am, C drank her milk with ease, and rested her head on Jonathan’s shoulder for five minutes before a (thankfully) successful transfer to her crib. With one sound, she flipped to her tummy and slept until 7:30 am.
My precious four hours of sleep were cut short by my faux-sunlight alarm and the birds chirping. I hum Charlie Hope’s Over in the Meadow to myself on my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
Over in the meadow, in the sand, in the sun, lived an old mother turtle and her turtle little one. Dig said the mother, dig, dig!, said the one. And they dug all day in the sand, in the sun…
I walk into my closet and see a foam “9” on the floor (or is it a “6”?), leftover from the night’s bath. It’s been two days, and the foam “9” is still in the same spot, a reminder of the curiosity that keeps her interested in the foam “9” for the sacred fifteen minutes it took me to get myself ready after my own shower.1
We made it through the night of teething pain, through the five hours from 9 pm to 2 am stuck in the liminal space, out of the MOTN (an acronym that every mom certainly knows) vortex where time both stops and slows and goes by too quickly. In the vortex, I desperately want to escape, want it to end, and want time to continue moving. Yet, in the same vortex, I desperately want to continue tracing my finger down her profile forever, and settle into the moment of sweet quiet when she stops crying. The vortex. It leaves me exhausted, depleated both emotionally and physically, but still craving the closeness, the reliance, the giggle, and the sweet smell of her head.
Note: I welcome any tips (witchcraft preferred) for soothing MOTN teething pain (please don’t suggest Tylenol/Motrin, we tried that already). Please and thank you.
This foam “9” has sadly made its way behind the changing table, in the crevasse between the table and the wall, never again to be seen until she demands we count to 10 in the bath. Note to self: I must remember the foam “9” is on the floor behind the changing table.
You have my sympathy- we’ve been there!
You know what they used to recommend? Rubbing whisky on the baby’s gums. I guess if they did that enough the baby would be snockered and sleep it off.
Before that(early 1900s) they recommended paragoric (sp?). That’s opium. Probably worked even better but then you might’ve had a baby addict on your hands.
Compared to all that, music is a marvelous solution.
XXXOOO great grandma Julie
Loved this!! Thank god for The Happy Song. You capture the tension of the parenting vortex so beautifully, wanting time to slow down just as you want an exhausting moment to speed up.