Turning a Sleepy Corner

I’m not saying he will always do it. And I’m not saying we have cracked it. I’m just stating a couple of facts…without wanting to jinx anything. Just fact. And the fact is….

[whispers] *Baby Boy has slept through 5 nights out of 7. Yep. Most of last week!!*

I’m not sure exactly how it happened but I have a bit of a suspicion (again, just stating fact…) that it’s got something to do with his meals. You see, last weekend, he was so busy loving the attention from all cousins that he kept batting my hand away when I tried to give him his 4pm tea. After half an hour of wiping his batted food off my being I gave up and using my OHs stance I thought “he’ll eat when he’s hungry”.

5.30pm came and with still no hunger in sight I decided to bath him early and let him have a play. Then it happened. The bath worked and, spotting his bowl, he made a beeline for it and started babbling…result! Food wolfed down in no time. It was about 7pm by now though so getting very late and I was surprised he’d lasted so long. By the time he was put to bed it was 8.30pm.

Then something strange happened… I woke in a bit of a panic at 5am. Err, no baby crying? Baby checked…all fine and still sleeping. Sleeping. Err, he slept…through? After a bit of gentle poking (just to make sure he was ok / not knowing a good thing when i see one) it hit me that yes… The baby that had two regular night feeds had slept through. Instead of diving under the covers, I waited for him to wake up. He didn’t wake till 6.30am!

Most of last week has been like this. I still feed him at 4pm but now give him a snack a bit afterwards too and it seems to be the missing link in our sleep chain. So far.

So after 9 months I think the baby is (ok, might be) turning a sleepy corner. Now I need to turn that corner too instead of waking up twice a night because I’m paranoid I heard him!

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Tears, Tantrums and The Baby

The last couple of weeks have been slightly strange. Ok, not strange. More like, bloody exhausting. A fresh wave of sleepless nights is visiting our household which I think I owe to the lovely age of “teething” we now seem to have entered. Coupled with the transition of getting the baby to sleep in his cot rather than the (3rd borrowed) basket that he has now grown out of, it has been tiring to say the least. It felt like I had a new-born again and, unfortunately, unlike the first lot of sleepless nights which I got through probably just on sheer baby euphoria, on this second wave I felt like I was starting to lose my patience a bit and go bonkers. Slowly.

Baby boy is now 6 months old and doesn’t sleep through yet. I know this is normal for a lot of babies so I’m not really worried and have become used to 1- 2 wake ups a night. This particular wave of sleepless nights though seemed to come from the depths of sleepless nights hell and meant I was regularly waking up about 4 times a night to provide feeds, cuddles, transfers back to cot, waiting at base of cot, waiting outside baby’s bedroom door, more feeds, cuddles, and so forth.

After about day 3 of sleepless hell, the lack of sleep was causing me to become a grumpy, stomping stroppy 5 year old type mooching about the house, trying hard to hold onto lunch dates / inkling of a social life / seeing other adults before 6pm (when the OH gets home from work). In turn, my moods were swinging from utterly weepy to utterly uber shouty bitch. Of course all of which was being directed to the Dear Husband. (“What do you mean you’re going to football / Do you never think maybe *I* might want to have a social life too??”). The OHs reaction to all of this is usually stunned silence or “don’t cry, calm down”. I’m not sure anyones told him that the only response to that is “What?! Am I not calm!??.  I am calm! Dont tell me to calm down..!!” etc.  On one particularly bad day, post bad night, I was meant to drive to a friend’s house about 15 minutes away and all I could think about was how tired I was.  So after some huffing and puffing I eventually wailed that I was “sooo tired!”

OH: “Why don’t you have a nap then?”

Me: “Because I want to go oooout!”

OH: “Oh, I thought you were tired?”

Me: “I want to do boooooth!”

OH “Shall I drive you?”

Me: “Nooo, its meant to be a girlie day”….[Insert more weepy whining here]

(Yes, there is something about lack of sleep that brings out the whining a bit extremely).

After about Day 8 of sleepless nights hell, the “teething” pain seemed to subside without any kind of visible result. Although i’ve realised that most unknown pains or cause for crankiness are now always classed as “must be teething”. This week Baby Boy is also taking to the cot which is a massive relief.  Not sure where we would have found yet another basket for him to sleep in that was actually big enough and wide enough for his little river-dance-in-his-sleep legs.  We back to the “normal” amount of wake ups a night. This week we (umm.. *I*) have had no tantrums. So far. But its Thursday already. That’s definitely good!

Long live 1 – 2 wake ups a night (for now. Sleeping through is very good too. Just for info).

Dearest Baby (5 1/2 months)

Hello Baby,

Well better late than never I suppose. I actually meant to do one of these every month. A monthly record of stuff you now do and little (and big) milestones achieved. I kind of got busy with looking after you and trying to catch up on sleep in the day. As well as going out, watching too much trash telly and generally being a bit lazy from time to time.

So whilst you’re asleep in my lap, here is what you’ve been doing (or not!), this month:

1. You can now roll over without trapping your arm under yourself. You still screech though. I used to think it was because of afore mentioned trapped arm. Turns out you just like screeching.

2. Now that you can turn over you try desperately to move forward but don’t really get anywhere. Many a time you lie grappling with the changing mat looking like a baby body surfer.

3. You cried the first time someone tried “Round and round the garden” on your hand. Hehe, I’m not sure why. I’ve tried after that and you chuckled so I’m
hoping it’s just that you didn’t like the person very much.

4. I’m convinced I caught you scowling at the cousin that never picks you up (and who generally doesn’t like babies!). You sat in your jumperoo, toy bee in mouth being drowned with your saliva, attempting a stare off. She glanced over at you nervously once or twice to be met by your steely stare. She’s lovely, she just doesn’t like sick or drool. I’m sure she’ll pick you up when you’re around 1ish. If you stop sicking up by then.

5. You love weaning / eating (whatever the correct term is). You seem to like stuff that stinks e.g mushed broccoli and spinach. Generally these result in equally stinky poos. You’re not too keen on some fruit at the moment. I always thought you’d jump at the sweet stuff! Especially considering both mummy and daddy have very sweet tooths! Regardless of what you’re eating though, I need to remember your hands are as quick as lightning, many a time finding their way gripped around the spoon in a flash. You also know how to clamp your mouth shut, tight, when you don’t like it or don’t want anymore.

6. According to one of those baby progression emails you might start giving hugs soon. Where’s my hug? I’m waiting! I thought you were going to give me one the other day. Turns out you just wanted to chew on my cardigan.

7. You still wake for night feeds. Personally I think some babies just don’t sleep through for a long. Long. Long time. As in more than 12 months; a year. *sob* I’m just kidding. It’s more like *weep*

8. I saw a 5 month old baby have a taste of coke (yes, COKE!) the other day. I was utterly stunned. You haven’t even had juice yet. Obviously this isn’t one of your milestones, just…I was so stunned! I’ll point him out when you’re older.

9. You look around in wonderment when I take you into another room in our house. You’ll turn around constantly examining everything, occasionally laughing at something (hopefully “approval” laughter rather than a mocking one). I find it really cute as you’ve seen our home a million times over. Umm I hope you’re not going to inherit obsessive cleanliness traits from your father or anything. Then again…

10. You love going outside. You will look out the window from your car seat and sometimes I hear you babble until you fall asleep. Sometimes it even sounds like you’re turning the pages of your crinkly fabric book thing 🙂

Next month…

Well hopefully we have some proper sun and we can go to the park properly and even sit for a bit and feed the ducks!