Parental Sleep Strategies for the Noodad

All’s
fair in love and war, and introducing a child into your home is a
full-scale assault on your ability to get a good night’s sleep. You
regularly will be jerked from the deepest period of repose in your
circadian rhythm by the cries or your kid. Loving parent that you are,
you’ll take it all in stride—but sometimes, man, you’ve just got to
catch those z’s. That means the adult on the other side of the Sealy
Posturepedic must tend to your kid’s needs during peak sleeping hours.
With a steely resolve and emotionless use of the following Parental
Sleep Strategies (PSS), you can get the sleep you need.

Possum

Possum, or Playing Dead, seems like
a simple PSS. Just pretend you don’t hear a thing and don’t move a
muscle. The tricky part is the set-up. If you’re a light sleeper, you
can’t suddenly become difficult to wake. You’ve got to practice while
your wife is still pregnant. It is also best to change your sleeping
position in advance. You want to become a side-sleeper with your back
to your wife so she can’t see your face. One involuntary eyelid flutter
and you’re sunk.

Chicken

Possum is a unisex PSS. You both may be employing the Possum tactic at
the same time, in which case you’ve entered the Chicken zone. The
classic Chicken stance will have you and your wife back-to-back under
the covers, hiding your faces from each other like a prominent local
politician shielding his visage from the prying eyes of news cameras
during his DUI arraignment. Now it is just a question of which one of
you is going to blink first in this OK Corral-like standoff. You’ve got
an unfair advantage, though, Doc Holliday. Her motherly instinct will
supersede her wanting to remain between the sheets. She’s probably on
to you, and you’ll hear a huge sigh as she whips off the covers and
heads out to tend to junior. You’ll smile as you recite lines from
Tombstone in your head and drift back to sleep: “I’m your huckleberry.
Why, Johnny Ringo, you look like a ghost just walked across your
grave…zzzzzzz.”

Negotiating

You won’t get away with either of the aforementioned PSS forever.
Ultimately you and your wife will find yourself negotiating for pillow
time, especially on the weekends. Many couples alternate: one sleeps in
on Saturday, the other on Sunday. Simple enough. But choose your day
wisely. You’re setting a precedent here and there will be outside
factors down the road that will come into play. Weekends are filled
with organized activities that can start very early. You’ll probably
attend many of these as a family, so make sure as few as possible occur
on your sleep-in morning. Research the local youth soccer league
schedules. Find out the Gymboree times and days for the different age
groups. Know at what time your particular house of worship holds its
child-friendly service. Plan, plan, plan.

You are now well-armed for spousal sleep skirmishing. Baby or no baby,
these PSS will have you sleeping like Rip Van Winkle on Ambien. Now, go
get ‘em, noodads!