{"id":650,"date":"2006-02-21T14:28:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-21T14:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html"},"modified":"2006-02-21T14:28:00","modified_gmt":"2006-02-21T14:28:00","slug":"because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html","title":{"rendered":"Swaddling: A Love Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The swaddle gods, they are laughing. Oh, how they laugh.<\/p>\n<p>I have endeavoured to overcome; I have given up; I have endeavoured again. I have given up again. I have embraced the swaddle, I have cursed the swaddle, and I have embraced the swaddle again. I have foresworn the swaddle; I have crept back, meekly, to the swaddle&#8217;s embrace. I have been utterly defeated by the swaddle.<\/p>\n<p>I AM THE SWADDLE&#8217;S BITCH.<\/p>\n<p>The swaddle, as a babycare tool, has been like crack: immediately and completely satisfying, but requiring increasingly intense application to maintain its effects. As I&#8217;ve <a href=\"http:\/\/badladies.blogspot.com\/2006\/01\/bustin-loose.html\">recounted<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/badladies.blogspot.com\/2006\/02\/four-times-in-one-night.html\">repeatedly<\/a>, the swaddle, she works wonders&#8230; <em>until<\/em> Baby figures out how to defeat the swaddle. Then there is much handwringing and agonizing over WHAT THIS MEANS: has Baby outgrown the swaddle?Is she trying to escape the swaddle? Is it time to de-swaddle? So we try to achieve sleep without the swaddle. We fail. There are tears. Baby will not go to sleep without the swaddle. So we redouble our swaddling efforts. And so on and so forth.<\/p>\n<p>There have been a few brief but glorious moments of swaddleless sleep recently. Keyword: BRIEF. Three naps, one fully unaccessorized, two in a sleep sack. This was cause for hope: Baby can sleep unswaddled! But then, as always, regression&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Today, two attempts to reclaim the glory of the swaddleless sleep failed spectacularly, ending in much remonstration by Baby to the effect of <em>how dare you lay me down to sleep completely exposed to the world? How can you leave your little baby naked, prone, vulnerable? What kind of monster is Mommy? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!?! <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Or, in English, <i>WAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaa?!? WAA waa waa WAA.<\/i><br \/><em><\/em><br \/>This resulted in complete relapse to the swaddle, effected as tightly and securely as possible. Which did, happily, thankfully, bring about the sleep.<\/p>\n<p>How gratefully I tiptoed into the room to check on her, nearly an hour later. Only to discover Baby COMPLETELY UNBOUND from the waist up, swaddle blanket crumpled around her chubby little knees, staring up at me, her big dark eyes asking:<\/p>\n<p><em>What were you expecting<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>Shoot me now.<\/p>\n<p><font><i>Originally posted at <a href=\"www.herbadmother.com\">Her Bad Mother<\/a>, 2006. Copyright Catherine Connors.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The swaddle gods, they are laughing. Oh, how they laugh. I have endeavoured to overcome; I have given up; I have endeavoured again. I have given up again. I have embraced the swaddle, I have cursed the swaddle, and I have embraced the swaddle again. I have foresworn the swaddle; I have crept back, meekly,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emilia","category-life-with-baby","category-the-swaddle-diaries"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Swaddling: A Love Story - Their Bad Mother<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Swaddling: A Love Story - Their Bad Mother\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The swaddle gods, they are laughing. Oh, how they laugh. I have endeavoured to overcome; I have given up; I have endeavoured again. I have given up again. I have embraced the swaddle, I have cursed the swaddle, and I have embraced the swaddle again. I have foresworn the swaddle; I have crept back, meekly,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Their Bad Mother\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-02-21T14:28:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Catherine Connors\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Swaddling: A Love Story - Their Bad Mother","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Swaddling: A Love Story - Their Bad Mother","og_description":"The swaddle gods, they are laughing. 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I have foresworn the swaddle; I have crept back, meekly,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html","og_site_name":"Their Bad Mother","article_published_time":"2006-02-21T14:28:00+00:00","author":"Catherine Connors","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html","name":"Swaddling: A Love Story - Their Bad Mother","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-02-21T14:28:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-02-21T14:28:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#\/schema\/person\/e5cb41c7478a8741b1ca837d0ad3eace"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/because-really-its-such-an-interesting-subject.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Swaddling: A Love Story"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/","name":"Their Bad Mother","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#\/schema\/person\/e5cb41c7478a8741b1ca837d0ad3eace","name":"Catherine Connors","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/48c\/48c0936a787715d590be21174b52d353x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/48c\/48c0936a787715d590be21174b52d353x96.jpg","caption":"Catherine Connors"},"description":"Catherine Connors is a mother, writer and recovering academic who traded the lecture hall for the playroom and discovered that university students and preschoolers have much the same attention span. She still dips her toes into academic waters by writing the occasional scholarly article about the place of motherhood in Western philosophy, but mostly now she changes diapers and wipes noses and indulges in long reflections on whether Yo Gabba Gabba is a harbinger of the decline of western civilization. Oh, and she blogs: in addition to Bad Mother blogging at BeliefNet, she is, among other things, the author of HerBadMother.com, the moderator of Her Bad Mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Basement, the co-founder and co-editor of WeCovet, a contributing writer\/editor at MamaPop and BlogHer, and most recently (deep breath) founder of and contributor to Canada Moms Blog. And in her spare time\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 oh, wait. She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have spare time. But she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay with that.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/author\/cconnors"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}