You know those lists in parenting magazine “what’s the #1 baby product you couldn’t live without?” Sure, boppies and blankets and binkies are great, but my response would be different: this lamp from Ikea.
I know, you’re thinking “it’s just a light for goodness sake!” But that, my friend, is where you’re wrong. It’s much more than a nightlight; it’s a lifesaver. Well, it is in our household anyway, even if I didn’t fully appreciate its value until recently.
It has hung on the wall of Nadia’s room since she was about 8 months old, casting a soft warm, hypnotic glow across the room every night. I’m almost positive that it has magical properties. Nadia is entranced by it. She has always been one to go to bed easily, but then discover a second wind and play for up to two hours (yes, two HOURS!) before falling asleep. I slip a few books into her crib each evening, so she spends part of that time reading to herself and TedBear and jabbering away. But more often than not, when I peek through the cracked door I see her standing at the far end of the crib (closest to the light), starting at that light in open-mouthed wonder. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t move. She just stares at the light.
So I’ve known that this light holds some kind of magical power over my wee girl, but I didn’t fully understand its significance until recently.
Last week the lightbulb burned out and it was a few days before I could get to the store for a new one, so I just popped another little night light in the outlet. A nightlight’s a nightlight – what difference does it make, right? Well, it does make a difference for Nadia.
Her sleeping through the night came to an abrupt stop. Without that flower lamp lighting the path to dreamland, she woke up a few times each night and insisted on starting her mornings at 5:30 or 6 a.m. That just doesn’t work for me!
I guess the missed sleep left me in a stupor, because I didn’t connect the lack of the flower lamp with the lack of said sleep. It wasn’t until a few days later, as I stood there replacing the light bulb, that I made the connection; pardon the pun, but the light bulbs in my hand and in my head lit up at the same moment. Aha! *That’s* why she’s not sleeping so well these last several days!
And it was true. That night as I put her to bed, she cheered to see her lamp back in its rightful spot. I peeked in on her later to find her staring at it in awe, just like always. And, she slept straight through until 8:30 in the morning! Woo-hoo! We’ve had three nights now of uninterrupted sleep and she hasn’t woken up before 8.
And that is why that cheap plastic flower-shaped light is one of my favorite things.
