Monday, September 19, 2005

Battle-scarred

Lately we've been trying to get Baby into the habit of getting herself to sleep i.e. putting her to bed while sleepy, but still awake. Some amount of crying was going to be involved.

This morning when it was time for Baby's midmorning nap, I put her in the hammock and went next door to make some phone calls. One postponed WOF appointment and an immunisation appointment later, I returned to the living room to find Baby crying her heart out, face beetroot-red and tears sliding down her cheeks. Her lethally long fingernails hadn't been filed down for several days, and she'd managed to make a deep scratch on her left cheek; it was actually bleeding.

I'm sure that if someone had walked in on me in that moment, they would've thought I'd been beating up my child.

Fortunately, Baby's skin seems to have Slayer-like healing capabilities; by this evening that scary looking cut was already looking heaps better.

There was a happy ending to today's sleep training too - I gave her a feed, rocked her till her eyes were about to close, and was rewarded by three textbook naps.

9 comments:

Urban Chick said...

oh, i used to hate it when my two scratched their faces - had instant pangs of guilt for not keeping on top of the nail-cutting!

it's just they grow so fast!

good luck with the sleep training - it's a case of short term pain for long term gain...

Amanda said...

I accidentally sliced some skin off the top of my daughters finger with the tiny baby nail clippers I had when I was trying to cut her nails. There was a lot of bleeding and crying and I felt like an utterly terrible mother and child abuser. I threw away the clippers after that.

Unknown said...

thank God she's your own child, is all I can say after my recent experiences...

Violet said...

urban chick: this sleep training lark sure is a trial...

mtnw: we have some clippers too, but they're for 6 months and over.

editter:I was thinking of you when I wrote it ;-)

Urban Chick said...

meant to add (and probably someone has already said this): best to bite the nails off with your teeth when she is asleep - much safer!

No Milk Please said...

crying babies make me very uncomfortable. i keep thinking that they need help somehow and they can't help themselves. they are so vulnerable...

no milk please

glomgold said...

This all sounds like a hell of a lot of work!

Rainypete said...

Their nails are crazy! It's like you have to cut them every 20 minutes or suffer the consequences. My little guy giuged my neck the other day to remind me I'd been slacking off.

Violet said...

glomgold: hell, yeah!

rainypete: I've got a little scratch on my neck too.