For the past few weeks; and in addition to his noise machine, we now play music for Niko for a about an hour while is going to sleep. Niko calls the two playlists Tinkle Tinkle and Spaghetti! Spaghetti, because Nina’s mom would put that particular album on and cook meat sauce and by the time the album was over, so was the meat sauce. Tinkle Tinkle, because it’s nice easy going sleepy music. We also have a recording of Nina reading a book, but he prefers the music to a book.
When Niko was born, one of the nurses in the maternity ward played jazz music on her phone while he slept; she left it in the bassinet with him. She even held him several times the first few days, so Nina and I could get some rest.
And, Nina and I have a baby monitor so we hear everything in Niko’s room. The monitor is on my side.
And, Nina has an audiobook playing all night long; it helps her go to sleep.
And, at any given time throughout the night, our neighbor’s loud cars will decide to wake up everybody on our street.
And, sometimes for no apparent reason, fireworks from the neighborhood will blast off and wake up everybody on the street.
And, our other next door neighbors have a German Shepherd puppy named Dexter who barks at the air! He also howls when a siren can be heard! And, whenever I take our trash out, he barks at me!
And, today, as I am writing this, somebody is playing loud music where all I hear is the bass and it’s super annoying! Also, our loud car neighbors were playing loud rap music and I kindly went outside and asked them to turn it down; and they did…they actually turned it off.
I am glad that Niko’s room is in the back of the house and his noise machine and music block most of the noise from outside and we also close his door. When it thunders and rains, we ask him if he heard it and the majority of the time, he says no.
I am used to his noise machine and Nina’s audiobook, but I am not a fan of the music. But, I don’t complain because if that will help Niko sleep, then I am all for it.
A few nights ago after I woke him up for his 3 am pee, I tucked him back in bed and was just about to close my eyes in my bed, and he called for me…DAD!!!!! I moved my eye mask above my eyes, opened his door, and he just stared at me for a few seconds; he told me he didn’t recognize me with my eye mask. I laughed! Then, I was like, OK…so, what do you need. Is everything OK? Niko answered softly…music please!
One of the things I miss about where we used to live was the quietness; we lived at that particular house for 5 years. So, we got used to darkness and quiet. Now, we live in a cookie cutter neighborhood with lots of noise and lights. But, it’s much much much closer to civilization and as soon as Niko can get vaccinated, we will do it and then we can start going out again and doing fun things without our masks.
