The BlogFather – The Sky TV (Parenting) Guide

I was thinking about this the other night and thought I’d share this in case anyone else had some quirky experiences.

Seren, who is almost nine this year, was a very big learning curve for us.  No matter what, nothing can prepare you from being catapulted into parenthood.  Each child brings their own challenges and you never have the same experience on your next one (or the next one and the…you get the point).  From strategically tiptoeing out of her bedroom, avoiding all the squeaky floorboards, toys that burst into tune when you brush them with your foot or the yelp you let out when you stand on a toy and internalise all the curse words that would make Frankie Boyle proud – it’s hard work and, to non-parents, sounds like a load of made up crap.

I would often be found sleeping in Seren’s bed with her clinging on to me so as to prevent me sneaking out and back to my own bed.  She would get wise to my strategy and feign sleep until she felt me move or heard me carefully (ever so carefully) slide off the bed to reverse-crawl out of the room.  Out of the three, she was certainly the worst for bedtime and the exhaustion inducing early hour operations to get her back to sleep.

But, before all that, she was a nightmare as a baby.  Having never had kids previously, Seren’s antics were incredibly alien to myself and my wife.  I would find myself sleeping on the sofa with her cwtched (cuddled) in to me as part of my protective instincts as well as stealing her heat.  There would be many a night where she would cry…and cry and cry.  We tried everything – extra bottles in case she was hungry, changing her nappy more often…you name it.  Tensions would rise as myself and my wife (fiancee then) would struggle to work out what was wrong.  We would be heard shouting “What do you want?” or something similar as if we expected a matter of fact answer back or some kinda sign from divine intervention.  No such luck.

There would be times where one of us would bring her downstairs so the other could sleep.  She would generally settle if she was held in close or wrapped up tight but it just became impractical when trying to get some shut-eye.  We would even try strapping her into her buggy and rocking it back and forth which seemed to work until you stopped and she would through a huge paddy.

I can’t remember how or who discovered it, but sitting her in the buggy in front of the TV when the old Sky Guide (the proper blue and screen which had the music playing on it).  Cracked it!  Of course, it would shut itself off after a while so it would often require a press of the remote to keep it going or bring it back but it did allow for some peace and sleep.

It worked well for a while.  Even in the day time for her nap it came in handy – shame we couldn’t have Sky +d the menu…and then they sent out a new viewing card and changed the GUI.  Gone was the blue screen and music and hello the revised version which looked nice but wrecked our technique for when we would have similar issues with Talia in the nights…Thanks Sky!

I’d lie in her bed for hours trying to work my way out of the room.  There’d be times I’d be almost out of the room and she would lift her head to check I was still there.  Sometimes I’d try and trick her by lying one of her big teddy bears on the floor and covering it in a blanket so it would look like it was me.  Other times, after hours of trying to escape and going back in her bed and then trying to escape again I would end up carrying her into our bed.

It makes me smile and chuckle to think back on those bizarre antics but at the time I was often close to tears with frustration and exhaustion.  There were many occasions where I felt like I may have had a breakdown…and then I ended up having two more.  Glutton for punishment, eh?

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