The first day we were home, Clara, we put you down in your Snoo.
The Snoo is a ridiculously expensive bassinet that listens to you while you sleep and has different level settings to swivel you back and forth with ambient noise while you lay on your back. It comes with a swaddle (we don’t swaddle you, so we hacked it a bit so that we could still use the features without needing to strap you entirely down).
The Snoo is one of those latest and greatest products, and given there’s a couple similar on the market, it’s likely to be the first generation of many AI-informed baby products. One day, I’m sure you’ll look back and think about how outdated it is now. It retails for $1600 but we got ours second hand for $500.
Well, we’re about to resell it again for the handful of times we’ve used the expensive features with you because… believe it or not the Snoo wakes you up.
That’s right. It promises better nights of longer sleep by lulling a baby back. But you, my dear, hate it. And you sleep the absolute least while in it.
You hadn’t been sleeping at night well, so we started paying attention to why. Your dad had a theory that your bassinet makes you miserable at night. I was paying attention to how you were diapered and your routine. You tend to take long naps in the afternoon, and it’s clearly not cutting it for nighttime wakefulness. So I put my theories to the test with mixed success since I haven’t had many opportunities to repeat them. And Papá tested his theory today.
Today you slept from about 1p to 5:45p waking up wearily just once to feed.
We did everything to try and wake you up. Turned on fans, blew lightly in your face and belly. Opened up your clothes, danced with you, took you outside, talked to you, put on the tv, blended a smoothie, sprayed water gently on your butt to clean you.
Nothing woke you. You stayed awake when we picked you up, when I showed you the windows, when I turned the lights on, when our dog licked your foot, when we put you in your travel bassinet downstairs, and when I fed you while you sat up. Nothing.
But when Papá laid you softly into the Snoo… Immediately you went into your discomfort grunts, followed by some stretches and uncomfy faces, followed by poop and pee and then eyes wide open.
The Snoo wakes you. So now, while it’s not the tool we anticipated, the fact that you hate it is now a tool for us to wake you up when you’re in too long of a slumber. And to hopefully get you on a solid day/night circadian rhythm here pretty soon, so that Mom and Papá can sleep.
Fingers crossed, Clara.
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