Memorable Sleeps: Somewhere Over the North Pole

My husband and I recently adopted a four-month-old sleeper.

After an amazing, exciting, exhausting three weeks in southeast Asia, it was time to fly home to New York with our new babe.

Do you know about bassinets? The kind you can get on airplanes? If you're booking a long flight and traveling with a baby under about 22 pounds, request one. It cunningly attaches to the bulkhead in front of you, becoming a cozy dresser drawer for infants. There you are "reclined" in coach, or, as we were, in premium economy — very nice, but not business class — while baby lounges deliciously.

For days we dreaded this flight. How could we mix 30 bottles of formula on our tray-tables? Surely we would be pounded by the collective glare of a hundred passengers when baby screamed over four continents, or even one territory. Can you change a diaper in one of those restrooms, or even shut the door behind you while joggling a small wombat? We figured twenty-three hours of trippy (at best) time awake was a foregone conclusion.

But in between Thai Supper #3 and Thai Supper #4, in between staring at the baby, which was more fun than any of the cable channels, I did somehow fall asleep.

I dreamed of flat things. Bookshelves, bowling alleys, the floors of lakes. I dreamed hungrily of horizon lines, rooflines, the paved surfaces of empty roads through the desert, a vacant beach, a ruler lying peacefully in the middle of a desk. I was madly jealous of that ruler. I almost became the ruler. I so craved the sensation of horizontalness that I finally woke up, had an epiphany, pushed our enormous nappie-and-bottle-stuffed duffle into the aisle, and lay down underneath the baby, feeling triumphant as a polar explorer.

Therewith followed the coldest, loudest, shallowest, most miserable nap. An electrical plate made an impression on my left cheek that did not even fade by the time we flew over Visby. Miraculously, the little mammal, for his part, slept almost all the way home in that bassinet. It was Baby Business Class.

Stay tuned for more tales, and insights, under the new category Baby Sleep!

Comments

[mamacita]

Congratulations, and welcome to parenthood! But you're gonna have to change your name...

[Gary Winter]

Hey do airlines have those sleepers in adult-size? They look so cozey.

Gleason

[Sleeper]

Parenthood creates new covetousness. For instance: do they have that fuzzy elephant sleeper in adult sizes? Why don't they bottle this banana baby food as ice cream sauce and sell it in the dessert aisle? But mostly, a baby's talent for dropping into deep sleep at any moment. Except sometimes when you need them to.