Thursday

bizarro

"Occasionally, a child just refuses to stay in bed, and every night there's a battle-royal. Although it sounds cruel, the best solution for this lies in tying, in 6 to 8 places, a tennis or badminton net over the top of his crib. This is a very effective method of keeping a child in his bed....Leave the bedroom door open, so your child doesn't feel totally imprisoned." - Better Homes and Gardens Baby Book (1970)

You can read more freaky-ass baby-sleep advice collected by my friend Ann Douglas in researching her newest book (on sleep).

2 comments:

Lisa said...

WOW!

Elizabeth said...

I think you should revise your book to reflect this bit of parental wisdom. :-P

My mother-in-law tells me that when her babies were very tired, and just cried and cried in their cribs, she would spank them. I suppose it was a similar idea to what we witnessed with our son--he'd be so tired but wouldn't go to sleep, so he'd be wandering around and we knew it was just a matter of time until he fell and hurt himself and then he'd get past that 'being tired' into 'being able to fall asleep.' Still and all. Spanking? I'm still totally weirded out by the fact that an otherwise sane-seeming person could spank a baby.