I am a blessed person because of my ability to fall asleep as I come in contact with a pillow. My husband on the other hand always needed a monotone of a news-reader to put him to sleep. The TV would blare out for half-hour every night, with a news-reader telling us about the day’s events. I am sure if she knew that someone was using her voice as a soothing lullaby, it would shatter her self-confidence.
Years passed and suddenly we were at that stage in our life when sleep became something we craved for. We had a baby. I no longer needed to lie down to sleep, it was possible to go into deep slumber at any time, much like during a lecture post-lunch during college days. Everyone told me that this difficult sleep-deprived phase would last a year and then miraculously the child would sleep through the night. Somehow, that miracle never happened. My child’s internal clock was set to suit the European countries. Her mornings began at way past 11 am, her afternoon naps lasted till sunset/moonrise and her nights began only in the early hours of morning. We tried all tricks in the books to change this schedule, but short of moving permanently to Europe, nothing seemed to work. We seemed destined to start nights in the early hours of the day and land up at work next morning with only few hours of sleep.
Our miracle happened after our child joined a play-school. She had to be there by 8:30 am, so the afternoon naps happened in the afternoon and she was willing to creep into bed sometime after dinner like most normal people. We were beginning to believe the worst was over.
Then before we knew it, came the phase where stories had to be told to her at bed-time — that part was delegated to my husband. The news-reader’s voice that lulled him to sleep was suddenly replaced by his own. He had a set of seven stories that had to be told, in the same order, without a word missed, before my daughter would consider sleeping. The first of the stories would always be told with a lot expression and enthusiasm. Somewhere between the second and the third, the yawns would start — not for the daughter, but the husband. We learnt a truth about bed-time stories: they were meant to put adults to sleep. Invariably, he missed words, sentences and sometimes pages as he would tell her the seven stories. My daughter devised a punishment for him whenever he committed this crime — to read out the story from the beginning in case he missed out anything. It is possible that a grown man can be brought to the point of crying just telling a bed-time story about a sly fox.
The seven-story drama continued until my daughter began to read by herself. We happily bought her a lot of read-it-yourself books and a night-reading bulb. Since then, she reads to her heart’s content before she decides to sleep. In this whole process, my husband learnt to sleep without the news-reader’s lullaby. I, as always, continue to be blessed.