Playing With / Getting the Baby to Sleep

Basic Trope: Doing something goofy to get the baby to either fall asleep, stop crying, or both.

• Straight: It's bedtime for baby Alice, but she's crying. Her father, Bob, tries to get her to sleep by juggling.
• Exaggerated:
  • It's not only Bob, but Alice's mother Carol, her grandparents Diane and Edward, Frank the neighbour, Uncle Gary, etc. each has their own ridiculous way oft trying to get Alice to sleep.
  • Bob's way of getting Alice to go to sleep is sending her to outer space and back.
• Downplayed: ​Bob tries to get Alice to sleep by singing "Jingle Bells" even though it isn't Christmas. Not that ridiculous, but it would still embarrass him if his boss were to find out.
• Justified:
  • Bob would do anything to get Alice to sleep for either or a combination of the following:
    • Alice's crying is annoying.
    • He wants to do something productive before it's time for him and Carol to go to bed too.
    • He's tired himself due to Alice keeping him up at night, since she's still too young to be sleep trained.
    • He feels sorry for Alice.
    • He's afraid of missing a TV show.
  • Bob was already a bit of a goofball; this is relatively normal behaviour as far as he's concerned.
• Inverted:
  • Bob uses an airhorn to try to wake Alice up.
  • Evulz uses bad accordion playing to make babies cry.
  • Alice makes faces to try to put Bob to sleep, or cheer him up.
• Subverted: Bob is about to get out the juggling balls, but decides not to.
• Double Subverted: He does a pratfall instead.
• Parodied:
• Zigzagged: Bob and Carol try various methods of getting Alice to sleep, some of them weird (Bob juggles, Carol reads a book in Pig Latin), and others normal (Bob sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Carol uses a white noise machine).
• Averted:
  • Alice falls asleep on her own.
  • Bob simply reads Alice a bedtime story.
• Enforced: The writers wanted Bob and Carol to have kids, but the executives were initially against the idea, fearing that the viewers would find the baby boring or too much of a Cousin Oliver. They eventually agree to let Bob and Carol have a baby, but only if the unpleasant aspects of baby-rearing were shown onscreen and there was plenty of comedy to prevent Alice from becoming boring.
• Lampshaded: "All this just for an insomniac baby?"
• Invoked: Alice refuses to sleep just so she can see Bob do something funny.
• Exploited:
• Defied: Bob refuses to sacrifice his dignity just for the sake of getting Alice to sleep.
• Discussed: "Alice won't sleep." "Have you tried juggling for her?"
• Conversed: "The stuff sitcom parents do to get their babies to bed!"
• Implied: We hear a bunch of goofy sound effects offscreen, along with a baby crying.
• Deconstructed:
• Reconstructed:
• Played for Laughs:
• Played for Drama:
• Played for Horror: The reason Alice won't sleep is because she's the Antichrist and Bob adopted her.

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