How hard is this parenting business

Awwww, aint Claire cute? Not right now she isn't. Right now she's pretty unhappy. Petey and I are attempting to put her to bed. Yep, all the best of our combined skills, which according to Claire are pretty much zilch, have left us with a very overtired little girl. The schedule for this evening of babysitting was supposed to be, an hour or so of playtime, at 7pm feed, change, put pj's on, read her a story, wrap her (arms out now she's older) , put in cot, put windy nursery rhyme thingy on, and Claire to enjoy some zzzz's, while Petey and I enjoy the Foxtel. It instead went a little something like this: playtime, lots of fun, very awake revved up little girl, not much interested in being fed, and even less interest in storytime or bedtime. Meanwhile at 8pm we get a text message from Del casually asking "is she asleep?"....i cannot tell a lie, so we just ignore the message. Its now 2 hours later and finally after many, many tears (she's got some mighty strong lungs now), she finally fell asleep.

The whole concept of a baby getting overtired is horrifying. Where is the way out? She's so tired she's irritable and can't relax. There is no way she could possibly sleep. Crazy. I think we've all been there in some form or another. Perhaps after a big night out, or a long flight, or perhaps as a parent dealing with an overtired infant? Ah, it all comes full circle. An overtired baby is just so hard to settle down. And I think that's exactly what we just dealt with.

Anyway, at last I got her to sleep. I'm not sure what worked, but i did do some hasty internet research and found that the key is to not just keep picking them up and definitely don't rely on rocking them to sleep in your arms. As soon as you then try to put them down they'll wake up anyway, and be even more startled. Not surprising when the last thing they remember was being rocked and now they're half way into the dreaded cot, or even worse, have woken up in a different place and all alone. Put them down and soothe them in the cot. Try and wind down early before they get overtired (oops, too late for that one), and most importantly of all, get some routine going. This is why new parents go through those glory days when the baby sleeps in a sling right through parties, and spends the day dozing in the pram while mum 'does lunch', but there gets to a time when the new parents have to hunker down and get a little routine going for the little one. Thats the year or so when their friends rarely see them.

There are a lot of theories, books and clinics dealing with the issue of babies and sleep. I can see why. The thing is, I imagine Claire is probably one of the better ones, and yet after tonight I have no idea how parents get through the first year without completely losing it. Or is that why parents for the most part develop an ability to completely sublimate themselves to their children's needs. That first year of intensive training, combining sleep deprivation, sensory overload and a complete lack of control. No wonder parents somehow seem so different to the rest of us unencumbered pleasure-seekers. Respect.