The light from the toddler sleeping heavens has finally shone down on my house, and my husband can now put our son to sleep. No, he hasn’t started lactating — Amazon sent the new parental phenomenon The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep by Carl-Johan Forssén Ehrlin.
The author, a Swedish psychologist, has written a purposely boring book about a rabbit that includes detailed instructions on how the parent (or any person desperate to get a child to sleep) should read the book. The instructions include prompts to yawn, words to emphasize, and areas where you slow your speech. These psychological techniques are intended to put the child into a sort of hypnosis that ends in a deep sleep. The book goes so far as to make the lofty claim that it can even coax the children most averse to bedtime into closing those little lids, and has a sign on the cover reading, “I can make anyone fall asleep.”
When this book first appeared on my radar, it sounded lovely in theory, but I was certain it wouldn’t have much of an effect on my child, similar to every single potty training technique I’ve ever heard. And teething rings.
But I was wrong, and oh how I loved being wrong.
Bailey Gaddis Blog 