A darkly comic story about a single father, one strong-willed baby, and sleepless nights that begin to look suspiciously like a carefully planned operation to break him—
I have no doubt that plenty of self-righteous puritans will dislike this post. The more extreme among them may even ask themselves, “Is this man really fit to be a father?”
To save them some time: probably not.
Now that we’ve settled that, we can begin.
I enjoy every kind of humor, including dark humor. The title may be strange, provocative, and intriguing, but this is not an indictment of a nine-month-old baby.
At least not yet.
It is simply one exhausted father’s attempt to determine whether his daughter is having perfectly ordinary trouble sleeping—or whether she is carrying out a sinister, systematic, and remarkably sophisticated plan to destroy him.
The Joke That Began Before Sara Was Born
Before my daughter Sara was born, I used to joke with my mother about the genetic background of the baby who was going to become my daughter. At the time, my mother was the only person who knew about my surrogacy journey. She was also the only person with whom I could share the tension, fear, and excitement that intensified as the birth approached.
The eggs used in the process were donated by a young Ukrainian woman who, judging by her photographs, appeared to be not only very beautiful but also rather sweet.
Ukraine has a complicated and painful history of antisemitism. Although Ukrainians suffered terribly under the Nazi occupation, some also collaborated with the Nazis in the persecution and murder of Jews. Earlier pogroms and other acts of violence contributed to the sweeping perception of Ukrainians as an antisemitic people.
And so, to relieve some of the tension before the birth, I would joke with my mother—my keeper of secrets—and wonder aloud whether my future daughter might turn out to be antisemitic herself.
After all, I said jokingly, you can’t argue with genetics.
My mother was initially stunned by the joke, but I kept going. Eventually, when the joke had clearly run its course, I did what I usually do in such situations: I took it far beyond the boundaries of good taste.
I informed my mother that I was worried my antisemitic Ukrainian baby might murder me in my sleep.
At that point, my mother decided that the joke had gone too far and repeatedly told me so.
In my opinion, she simply failed to appreciate the magnitude of the danger.
Then Sara Was Born
When Sara was born and immediately became the center of the Ovadia family universe, we were all so excited and completely in love with her that the morbid joke was forgotten.
We were also far too busy to remember it.
The days flew by, and as time passed, it became increasingly clear that Sara was not an especially easy baby. She was strong-willed, highly demanding, and had a serious problem with delayed gratification.
If Sara wants something, she sees no logical reason why it should not happen immediately.
But beyond all that, I began to notice another troubling characteristic—one that became more pronounced as the months passed. Sara had developed a strange and somewhat diabolical hobby: preventing her father from sleeping, even when doing so meant sacrificing her own sleep.
I know what you’re thinking. Accusing a baby of sleep deprivation sounds ridiculous. After all, keeping her father awake is practically part of her job description.
But when it happens systematically, night after night, questions must be asked.
The Nightly Sleep-Deprivation Operation
Sara wakes me roughly every two hours. Sometimes her pacifier has fallen out. Sometimes an outside noise has disturbed her sleep. Sometimes she may have had a bad dream. And sometimes she wakes up for a late-night snack.
On other occasions, she apparently feels that three in the morning is the perfect time to cuddle in her father’s arms.
That, of course, is the innocent explanation.
The alternative is that all of this is part of an organized plan to deprive her father of sleep.
During the first few months, I accepted it as inevitable. While I was on parental leave, it was still somehow bearable. But after I returned to work and the sleep deprivation continued to accumulate, it became an almost unbearable burden.
After nine months without a single uninterrupted night, I thought Sara might finally be ready to sleep through the night. Except for teething nights and other unusual circumstances, surely she could stop waking every two hours and testing the patience of the only parent she has.
Sara disagreed.
Forty Minutes of False Hope
Over the past few nights, Sara has established a new routine.
At around seven in the evening, I put her in her crib for the night, and she does, in fact, fall asleep. At that point, I rub my hands together with delight.
This is it, I tell myself. Tonight is the night. Tonight, I am finally going to sleep.
But Sara, displaying the sadism that has become her personal trademark, wakes up forty minutes later and screams until I take her out of the crib.
In retrospect, it became clear that she had not fallen asleep because she was tired or intended to remain asleep. She had merely been recharging her batteries in preparation for a long night of crawling and roaming around the house—precisely when her father was already on the verge of collapse.
After forty minutes of sleep, she wakes up bursting with energy, her sails filled by a powerful wind. She crawls into every corner and investigates every tiny space in our small home.
I, meanwhile, can barely function, but I am expected to follow her around and make sure her nighttime expedition ends safely.
I offered her a compromise I believed I could live with: the playpen.
She could stay awake and play to her heart’s content, while I would no longer have to chase her around the house.
Sara knows exactly what she wants.
She did not even dignify my proposal with a response.
At that point, I began to suspect that this was a deliberate operation with one clear objective: to deprive her father of sleep and exhaust him completely.
What does she hope to gain? Another victory over the broken father who has not slept in nine months? Perhaps she is attempting to set a Guinness World Record.
She certainly appeared as motivated as someone determined to have her actions remembered throughout history.
Negotiating With a Nine-Month-Old Baby
At around nine that evening, when I realized this was not another passing episode, I decided to appeal to Sara’s business instincts.
I offered her 100 shekels to go to sleep.
Sara was apparently insulted by the ridiculously low offer. Without responding, she continued crawling around the house and into the night.
I realized I was dealing with a baby who knew that she held all the cards—and who knew how to conduct a ruthless negotiation.
As my exhaustion deepened, I began raising the offer.
Two hundred shekels.
Three hundred.
Four hundred.
When I reached five hundred shekels, I stopped. I decided it was time to draw a line and put an end to the humiliating extortion I was experiencing that unforgettable night.
By eleven, I had reached the absolute limit of my physical and emotional endurance. I understood that I could no longer safely follow her around in my condition.
With the little strength I had left, I picked her up from the hardwood floor and, accompanied by her thunderous protests, carried her toward the bedroom.
The moment I placed her in the crib, she closed her eyes and fell asleep—before I even had the chance to offer her a thousand shekels.
It was one of the defining moments of my life.
Needless to say, I fell asleep immediately afterward, only to wake up three hours later and prepare her nightly bottle of Similac.
And What Happens on Saturday Morning?
Do you still think I am imagining things? Has my exaggeration crossed the acceptable limits of humor in stories about raising babies?
Then explain the following.
On an ordinary weekday, my mother comes to my home to take care of Sara while I am at work. Once I leave, Sara continues sleeping for hours, as though she is using the morning to catch up on all the sleep she deliberately denied herself during the night—solely to keep me awake.
But on Saturday, the only day of the week when I might actually be able to sleep a little longer, she consistently wakes up at six in the morning and summons her father to remove her from the crib immediately.
It is as if she is saying, “You don’t get to sleep on Saturdays, either.”
Now try telling me this is not deliberate.
Sleep deprivation, in case you did not know, has been used throughout history as a method of interrogation and torture. And since I mentioned the accursed Nazis at the beginning of this post, the Gestapo also reportedly used it to exhaust detainees and break down their resistance during interrogations.
I am merely placing that fact before you.
Draw your own conclusions.
The more deeply I investigate the matter, the more my hair stands on end.
Sleep Deprivation Is Only the Beginning
If Sara truly is an antisemitic Ukrainian baby whose mission is to break her Jewish father, sleep deprivation alone will probably not be enough.
In previous posts, I have repeatedly mentioned that Sara constantly demands to be carried by her father, no matter the situation or the time of day—often for no apparent reason other than that she feels like it.
Naturally, the self-righteous puritans will argue that, as a baby, she has every right to demand this. They may also claim that I am to blame because I am the one who allowed her to develop this unhealthy habit—a habit that now threatens to shatter my back into tiny pieces.
And I admit it: I do not deny responsibility.
When Sara weighed less than seven pounds, carrying her was pleasant and even rather sweet. Now that she weighs roughly three times as much, it is only a matter of time before I collapse completely—assuming the trend continues.
When you combine the systematic sleep deprivation with the relentless destruction of my back, there is at least a theoretical possibility that Sara has put out a contract on her father, yours truly.
Her Secret Weapon: Screaming
Another method Sara has developed is screaming.
Ever since she discovered that she has a voice, she has used it to scream at her father at every available opportunity. Whenever something fails to meet her approval, she unleashes the full power of her lungs upon me.
At first glance, this, too, seems perfectly ordinary. A baby screams to get attention. Big deal.
But when she does it at night while all the neighbors are sleeping—or in public, while everyone stares at me and wonders what this father is doing to his daughter to make her scream like that—the matter takes on an entirely different meaning.
Perhaps it is a calculated method of humiliation.
Is Sara using her screams to make it clear who the master of the house is and who is the obedient servant? Does she know that one well-placed scream in public is enough to make me surrender to every one of her demands?
The doctrine of racial hierarchy is alive and well in my home.
So, Is Sara Really an Antisemitic Ukrainian?
Is Sara truly an antisemitic Ukrainian, following in the footsteps of those Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis? Is she carrying out a carefully planned operation to break her father through sleep deprivation, wrecking his back, and public humiliation?
Quite possibly.
Although, on second thought, probably not.
The more likely explanation is that she is a spoiled, strong-willed, uncompromising baby whose father is incapable of setting boundaries.
Unfortunately, as far as I am concerned, that possibility is no less alarming.
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