A humorous and brutally honest parenting story about a 53-year-old single father trying to survive another sleepless night with his energetic baby daughter, Sara, who believes nighttime is meant for parties.
You know those overly ambitious babies who are barely born before they start reshaping the world around them?
The ones overflowing with irrational self-confidence, completely ignoring the laws of nature, their exhausted parents, and anyone foolish enough to challenge their infantile demands?
If you’ve never met such a baby, allow me to introduce you to one.
In fact, the undisputed leader of them all.
Sara has never been a conventional baby.
She has no interest in setting an example for other babies by thoughtfully considering her exhausted single father’s needs, calmly expressing her wishes instead of screaming like a tiny banshee, or — most importantly — allowing Dad to sleep at night so he can wake up in the morning and go to work to finance her endless demands.
Sara is the exact opposite — the pioneer of all rebellious babies who believe parents should be ruled with an iron fist rather than lived with in harmony.
Sara recently turned seven months old and is becoming more independent by the day.
In theory, this is wonderful and completely natural — especially for the only daughter of an aging father who will celebrate his 53rd birthday in about six weeks.
The problem is that Sara firmly believes her independence must come at the expense of the basic comfort of the man legally assigned by court order to provide for all her needs. Otherwise, she simply can’t enjoy it properly.
Lately, Sara has decided to test my patience to its absolute limits by declaring that in her kingdom, nighttime is daytime and daytime is nighttime.
After dark, she prefers to play, sing, and demand that her father carry her nonstop in his arms. Otherwise, she threatens to unleash crying so loud that the neighbors might suspect something deeply troubling is happening in the apartment where aging Yaniv and his baby daughter Sara live.
The Night Everything Fell Apart
Last night, Sara elevated her bizarre lifestyle into a genuine art form.
At first, she behaved completely normally, carefully hiding the surprise she had planned for later.
After her bath and dinner, I placed Sara in her crib around seven in the evening, as usual. She was calm and relaxed, and I began fantasizing about a peaceful evening that I had unquestionably earned fairly — a hot shower, a light dinner, and several episodes of Seinfeld for dessert.
About thirty minutes later, the illusion shattered when Sara announced from her royal bed that she was officially done sleeping for the night and that my real workday was only beginning.
At that innocent stage, I still believed I could reverse the situation with a gentle head rub, a few soothing words, and perhaps some comforting rocking. I recovered from that illusion very quickly.
The concert of wailing soon reached full volume and quickly escalated into heartbreaking crying.
It was as if she were accusing me of being a cruel father who locked his innocent baby daughter in bed at night and shamelessly prevented her from roaming free.
The Night Shift Begins
That was the moment the nightly torture marathon officially began.
I removed Sara from her crib, played with her, carried her around the apartment, rocked her in my arms, and tried to wear her out enough to put her back to sleep.
Every single time I foolishly convinced myself she was finally tired and placed her back in the crib, she immediately screamed for release.
Following my mother’s advice — who insisted it was perfectly fine to let a baby fuss for a little while before falling asleep — I attempted to let Sara “fuss a little.”
With Sara, however, “a little” stretched endlessly.
After forty minutes, I surrendered and removed her once again for more nighttime entertainment.
If you think this had anything to do with teething, I personally doubt it.
If tooth pain had been the real issue, she would have continued crying after I removed her from the crib.
Instead, she celebrated her liberation joyfully.
The hours flew by. Sara was clearly exhausted but refused to fall asleep, fighting sleep as though it were her mortal enemy.
I attempted to appeal to the logic of the tiny boss of the house, explaining that Daddy had an important workday tomorrow and needed at least a few hours of sleep in order to function and avoid losing the family’s only source of income.
Sara, however, like an experienced slave trader, responded with threats of devastating crying — potentially even more dangerous than unemployment if the neighbors decided to report me to social services.
Negotiations With a Tiny Dictator
When logic failed, I hoped emotion might work better, so I switched to begging.
I literally dropped to my knees and pleaded for a one-hour break from the nightly festival.
No more than that.
Just a short intermission that would allow me to survive another night inside the chaos that had become my life.
In response, Sara smiled at me in the way many people mistakenly interpret as angelic, sweet, magical, and filled with heavenly light.
But I know better.
By now, I’ve learned to recognize the carefully disguised wickedness hidden behind those warm, coffee-colored eyes.
When even my desperate pleading failed and I realized all hope was lost, I was forced to comply with the demands of my private little tyrant and continue entertaining her throughout another sleepless night.
Occasionally, I attempted to feed Sara, only to discover that yet another freshly prepared bottle of formula had gone to waste. At night, she simply isn’t into food.
Dad vs. Exhaustion
I won’t lie. This was unusually difficult.
By midnight, I was no longer capable of standing continuously.
So I placed Sara on her toy-covered activity mat in the living room and collapsed onto the couch opposite her, trying to monitor my beloved daughter while simultaneously waging war against my stubborn eyelids.
At that moment, I remembered a particularly funny joke from the movie City Slickers, when Billy Crystal referred to the fact that cowboy Jack Palance was sitting on his horse with his eyes closed.
Crystal jokingly declared that Palance, like a real cowboy, watches over the herd with his eyes shut.
I wondered whether I could do the same — watch over Sara while sleeping at the same time.
I felt I had no choice but to attempt it, because another few minutes and sleep would simply overtake me by force.
Dracula, Werewolves, and One Overly Awake Baby
The enormous gap between my complete exhaustion and Sara’s endless energy created an utterly surreal reality in the middle of the night.
With all due respect to reality itself, it seemed to me that Sara had adopted the lifestyle of mythical creatures who come alive at night and sleep during the day — Dracula, werewolves, and every ghost clocking in after midnight.
My imagination began tormenting me with the possibility that my beloved daughter might suddenly reveal two sharp vampire fangs and sink them directly into my neck, turning Sara and me into a family of childish Nosferatus.
Sleeping all day and playing with toys all night.
Every so often, Sara signaled exhaustion by rubbing her eyes irritably and yawning repeatedly, as though suggesting she was finally prepared to sleep.
But very quickly I realized this was merely another cruel provocation designed to plant false hope inside me.
The moment I gathered her into my collapsing arms and approached her crib, she began whining softly.
The instant I laid her down, the whining transformed into full-scale screaming, making it perfectly clear that my shift was far from over.
Temporary Ceasefire
Only sometime around midnight did Sara finally agree to suspend operations and take a brief nighttime nap. Apparently, even her batteries had limits and needed recharging.
I silently thanked God and threw my aging bones onto the living room couch.
I was afraid that if I slept in the bedroom, my snoring or breathing might wake the light-sleeping princess and destroy what little remained of the night.
Sara slept for roughly three hours, although she repeatedly woke up so that I — her loyal servant — could rock her back to sleep.
At four in the morning, she woke up permanently to snack on 60 milliliters of formula out of a 180-milliliter bottle.
After a weak little burp, I returned her to the crib.
Naturally, she protested immediately with a series of loud complaints.
But by that point, I was completely broken.
I no longer cared about anything, not even if the neighbors woke up.
I lay on the couch ignoring her loud demands to be removed from prison and returned to nighttime entertainment.
Sara finally fell asleep around five in the morning.
It was exactly one hour before my alarm clock was supposed to begin another workday.
The Problem: I’m Alone
At 6:15 in the morning, my dear mother — who also serves as Sara’s caregiver — arrived at the apartment and released me to go to work.
According to her report later that day, Sara successfully completed all the missing sleep she had skipped during the night and fully recharged her batteries for another future night of destruction.
Based on my unofficial survey of young parents, Sara’s behavior is not unusual at all.
Many couples go through this kind of sleepless madness with their babies.
They suffer too and desperately wait for this stage to pass.
But they have one enormous advantage: there are two of them.
They can take turns during the nightly marathon, while I live alone with Sara and therefore experience the challenge at double intensity.
My mother occasionally jokes that perhaps all this suffering will finally motivate me to get married.
I told her not to hold her breath waiting for that miracle.
So, with no other option available, I’ll continue dealing with the chaos while hoping for quieter nights.
As for Sara… she has apparently adopted the famous saying that the world belongs to the young. But, true to form, she upgraded it for her own personal purposes: the world belongs to babies. Especially to her, my midnight baby girl.
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