The Night of the Glow Stick

Henry wouldn't fall asleep the other night. He wailed in his crib like he was being stuck with pins and simply would not tire. For those who don't have children: this happens sometimes. You may discover the secret behind it or its cause may remain a mystery. It's always exhausting and it breaks your heart a little to see your baby, inconsolable, in his crib red-faced and hollering. It's also frustrating, especially when it's past your bedtime.

So the other night when wee Henry would not sleep, I eventually loaded him into the pram, wrapped in a blanket and pushed him around the neighborhood. It took a couple of laps, but he eventually fell asleep. I then pushed him home and very gingerly picked him up and relocated him to his crib.

When I placed him in his crib, he immediately flipped over onto his belly and I knew that my night was not yet over. Sure enough, for the next two hours he awoke every 15 minutes or so, complained and went back to sleep. This went on until 10:30 when he started to fuss louder. When I went into his room he had a complete meltdown. Nothing would console him. Back into the pram for Henry.

My neighborhood has no street lights. We live close to the end of a cul-de-sac and it's dark on our street. People often turn down our street thinking it is a shortcut to a popular destination and when they realize they are mistaken, they press down on the gas pedal, whip around the cul-de-sac and fly back up the street. Pushing the pram through the neighborhood after dark was not my first choice of how to get Henry back to sleep, but nothing was working.

I'd made most of my first lap when I saw an unearthly glow down the street. My husband was making his way towards me with a glow stick- one of those sticks you see kids carrying at Halloween or that you see parking lot attendants using after dark. They have a chemical inside them that is contained in a glass tube and you bend the tube, breaking the glass tube that creates a chemical reaction, producing a brightly glowing tube. It lasts for about 8 hours.

Nate has a lot of emergency equipment and he wanted us to be illuminated while we were walking. He fell in step next to me- our 2 year-old was sleeping soundly and we hoped we wouldn't be long. Besides as parents one has to do what one has to do.

Henry was not going back to sleep this time. His eyes were open and bright. He hadn't cried at all since being put in the pram- he was perfectly happy there, he just wasn't going to sleep.

The glow stick captured his attention. He reached for it and called to it. They're sturdy and unlikely to break, so Henry was given the glow stick. He burbled and cooed at it and held it above his head like the Grand Marshall of our peculiar parade. He put the end in his mouth and made his cheeks glow. We circled the block again.

We must have been quite a sight- the two of us pushing a pram down the street, emitting an unearthly glow. Maybe since it's close to Halloween no one thought anything of it. It was trash night, so we did run into a couple of neighbors.

Eventually we decided to give up and go home. Henry went into his crib.

With his glow stick.

He burbled at it and waved it around. He cooed at it and shook it. He admired it and loved it.

After about an hour, he finally fell asleep with it under his blanket, by his side. Nate went in and removed the glow stick from his crib. Henry slept peacefully through the rest of the night.

I don't expect our travails of that evening to make it into any parenting books as in "If your baby won't stop crying, try giving him/her a glow stick...." It worked for us for one night though. Who knows what will work the next time? I know I'll make sure we always have a supply of glow sticks in the house, just in case. Heck, maybe I'll even stash one in the diaper bag.