I don’t know how this baby who was such an easy sleeper went to being completely allergic after 6 months. I don’t know how or why.
I do know that up until 6 months I was very, very spoiled.
278/365 I Don’t Know
Posted on January 17, 2012 2 Comments
The First Step is Admitting It, Right?
Posted on December 14, 2011 7 Comments
Most of the time when I’m in a tough situation I just push through. Most things I find can be solved with sheer determination. Most. But apparently, not all.
I didn’t start writing this blog until Riley was a year old and sometimes I forget that. I want to get things done and get increasingly more and more frustrated that I can’t. Because Piper after months of easy sleep is now really struggling – both to get to sleep and to stay asleep. And where she once would put herself to sleep happily – now she needs to be held to sleep. And if I put her down before she’s in a really deep sleep she starts to scream before her body has even hit the bed.
And I don’t hate the needing to be held to sleep. Particularly on days when I don’t have to do anything. When I was at the Blogger Relations Forum on Thursday she slept on my chest on the way down to Sydney on the train, on the way back and during the Fashion Bloggers panel. I was in heaven. I loved it. It’s a little harder when I’m at home and there’s a whole heap of stuff to get done. And I’ve been falling behind on everything. I also can’t get to the gym (which does wonders for my mental health) because the sleep’s not reliable enough for me to head off when she’s napping.
The whole thing leaves me feeling overwhelmed, out of control and frustrated. Until.
Until I admit that this is what is happening and I can manage looking after both the babies and that’s about it. Until it changes again. Which it will. Babies are predictable like that.
168/365 The Girl Who Doesn’t Sleep
Posted on April 27, 2011 7 Comments
Naps are gone. Night time sleep is on its way. A mere month ago her sleep at night was blissfully reliable. She’d go down (relatively easily) and then only come into our room at around 4 or 5 in the morning. Thanks to the sibling adjustment period (please, tell me it’s a phase?!) she’s now up several times a night. She even had a rather spectacular tantrum last night because she couldn’t go and hang out with Daddy in the lounge room when she woke up at 11pm. I’m cruel, obviously.
But despite this bringing my sleep deprivation to a whole new level, I know that it’s more than a sibling adjustment. She lost her cat-shaped friend, gained a sister and lost a significant portion of mama time all in the space of a week. Josh told me that when they were alone today they had this conversation:
Her: I love my family
Him: Who’s in your family?
Her: Mummy and Daddy and Mags (Morgan’s nickname)
Him: And PIper?
Her: Oh yes, yes!
And the other day she listened to a video of Morgan meowing about 20 times. It’s easy to be distracted by newborn snuggliness after Morgan’s death. But every now and then I’ll be reminded. I now sit in an armchair that I never used before because I was so paranoid about Morgan clawing it that it was always covered in bags. And I still miss her.
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Christmas . . . Thy Name is Sleep Deprivation
Posted on December 26, 2010 1 Comment
I have a good sleeper. She wasn’t always like that. But as a toddler, she’s generally a good sleeper. An early riser, definitely. But she rarely wakes up in the middle of the night and if she does she’s easy to get back to sleep. That is until Christmas Eve when they all came unraveled rather quickly.
It would seem that although she’s pretty keen on being at Grandma’s house, she’s not so keen on being away from her own bed. And so it was that at midnight on Christmas Eve I found myself awake (barely) with a toddler who was too scared to go back into the bedroom and too wired to sleep. Hours later, finally I convinced her to sleep at about 3 or 4am. I only noticed on Christmas morning that while I had dozed off in my attempt to get her to sleep she’d taken several unflattering photos of me lying there. Technology is wonderful.
So it was with somewhat bleary eyes that I welcomed Christmas day. Although it must be said the googy had enough enthusiasm for the both of us. And I’m grateful that she is still too young to remember the sheer volume of presents that she is currently receiving at Christmas. And will not be comparing next year to this when there are two kidlets to spoil instead of just the one.
I was sadly unable to procure caffeine in an IV drip for the day. But I did my best with a combination of espresso and copious amounts of sugar. And reminded myself that it was excellent preparation for newborn sleep patterns. It didn’t help.
And eventually even Christmas googy bears have to go to sleep.
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Guest Post @ Sleepless Nights
Posted on July 29, 2010 Leave a Comment
I’m guest posting today at Sleepless Nights. You can check it out here: Exhaustion and the Art of Lazy Parenting.
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Goodbye Sweet Naps
Posted on July 21, 2010 5 Comments
I’ve been holding on to the afternoon nap for dear life. Those few hours during the day where I could get things done, or do nothing, or just listen to the beautiful sound of silence. I persisted despite knowing, deep down that it was over.
And then I realised between it taking half an hour to an hour to get her to take the nap and the extra hour it was taking me to get her to bed at night, it wasn’t exactly giving me any extra time. And that bedtime was getting closer to 9pm. Which meant I was eating dinner at 10pm and not getting to bed at a decent hour. So finally, this week, I threw in the towel. I figured she might nap every second day for awhile, but I’d leave it up to her.
The first night saw her in bed at 7pm and asleep at 7:15pm. Oh, heaven. Actual time for myself in the evening. Time that doesn’t involve madly shoveling food down my throat before bed.
The funny thing? Once I released my vice-like grip on the damn nap – most days since then she’s napped. And she’s been sleeping better at night. Yes, she woke up at 5:30 this morning, but she didn’t come into our bed. And I enjoyed sleeping alone – undisturbed sleep. And being able to wake up on my own when Josh was leaving for work. Without being slapped awake by teeny little hands.
I could get used to this new routine. In bed at a decent hour. Up early. Mostly still napping because of the 5:30 start. I don’t mind the early start. She is very happy to play on her own in the morning and I can get plenty of work done. Right now she’s next to me on the couch arranging some of her books into a line – counting them – messing them up – and starting over.
Maybe it’s not goodbye to naps after all, but it is goodbye to my control freak tendencies as far as daytime sleep is concerned.
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Who’s Scared of Night Terrors?
Posted on June 23, 2010 11 Comments
So far, it’s only happened once. Once was enough. But it could well be an ongoing thing. At the time I had no idea what was going on. It was 3am. Ordinarily when Riley wakes up in the night she just trundles her way into our room, has a little help to get into our bed, snuggles up next to me, insists that I tuck her in nicely under the ‘noo-noo’ (doona) and nestles her way back to sleep. But on this night I could hear her crying and she was still in her room. That was odd.
I tried picking her up. A couple of times. Each time resulted in what seemed to be an unbridled, full-blown temper tantrum. Beyond the normal tantrum. Head banging, thrashing, don’t touch me tantrum. That was scary. Riley is a toddler who loves to be held and cuddled. Regardless of whether she’s mid-tantrum, mid-play or mid-sleep. She’s been that way since a baby. She was a cuddly baby – her favourite place to sleep was on my chest. She’s a cuddly toddler – she likes the tackle cuddle – running at pace towards my open arms, she likes sleeping cuddles and belly rubs when she’s going of to sleep, she likes story cuddles when we’re relaxing on the couch and she still likes to sleep on my chest from time to time. So this was unknown territory.
I took her into the kitchen to get her some milk. She starting slamming the fridge door, then dropped to the ground, pivoted around with her feet for some more thrashing and started banging her head on the kitchen floor. Josh came in to check on the commotion and either because enough time had passed or because his voice is louder she seemed to come out of it all of a sudden and wrapped her arms around my neck, ready to be taken into bed. It was over, finally. And once she was back in bed with us, she went into a deep sleep and didn’t even wake up when I went to work.
It was only in the morning that I connected the dots that she hadn’t really been awake. She’d been stuck between wake and sleep, in some kind of nightmare. And it was only later that my twitter family informed me that it had a name, and that it was surprisingly common.
She seemed fine the next day. I was a little shaken up. It’s never pleasant to feel helpless, particularly as a parent. I’m not sure what our approach will be the next time. I think, for her, the best thing is just to be there next to her and not try to wake her up, but I just don’t know yet. Maybe a gentle waking wold work just as well. As with anything, trial and error is probably the only way to go. I just know I would be quite happy if I never had to experience her thrashing her head around on the kitchen floor like that, ever again. I also know that most fear is in the unknowable – next time won’t be nearly as scary.
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Open Door Policy
Posted on March 24, 2010 10 Comments
A few months back, the munchkin started wanting company to go to sleep.
If I put her in bed and closed the door she’d just get up again and bang on the door.
Not anymore.
I’ve discovered the secret.
If I leave the door open, she doesn’t get out of bed.
She just chats to herself and then goes to sleep.
I’ve now blogged about it.
I anticipate that the whole situation will unravel rather quickly.
Mummy, Don’t
Posted on February 25, 2010 31 Comments
I am extremely soft-hearted when it comes to Riley. I don’t think twice about her sharing our bed when she wants to, lying down with her if she needs company to go to sleep, reading her a story when I’m trying to get work done or cuddling her through a tantrum. It’s not always convenient, somtimes it’s even boring (I challenge you to sit in a dark room for over an hour and not get at least a little bored) and it can be tiring. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And every now and then something happens that just breaks your heart in a good way.
I have been encouraging Riley to go to sleep on her own. She had been happily going to sleep on her own, but we had a bit of a disruption with our trip and she had been needing me to either sit in the room with her or lie down next to her. So my routine goes something like this. I hug and kiss her goodnight and put her into bed. She gets out of bed and slaps the door. I go back in, put her back into bed and give her another hug and a kiss. Repeat until either she’s tired enough that she’ll go to sleep or if she gets upset I’ll stay in with her. It’s unpredictable, sometimes she’ll go to sleep straight away, sometimes she just can’t. But things are slowly returning to normal.
Tonight we were doing this night time dance and I had gone in for about the third (or fourth) time. I walked into the room and there she was standing there, in the dark with only the night light on. She reached both her hands up, ‘Mummy’. She doesn’t say ‘mummy’ that often, so it’s pretty heart-melting at the best of times. I pick her up and we have a really long cuddle, with her head resting on my shoulder. After a while, I put her back into bed. As I stand up, she looks up at me with those big saucer eyes of hers, reaches out both of her hands, ‘Mummy, Don’t’. No one could resist that. No one. And who would want to?
Needless to say, Mummy didn’t.
The Backslide
Posted on February 2, 2010 3 Comments
When Riley was about 14 months old she started reliably sleeping through the night and no needing my presence to get to sleep. Up until that point she was up three or more times a night and at nap time I would need to rock or stroke her to sleep.
Perhaps it was because I was no longer breastfeeding her, so there was less interest in night-time snacking, or perhaps it was that she had always hated the cot and I’d moved her to her toddler bed. Either way, I didn’t care. It was such a relief to have a break. It wasn’t just the sleep deprivation, it was the emotional pressure of being completely responsible for whether or not she slept.
Since her recent bout of teething and illness there’s been a bit of a sleep regression. More often than not I sit in her room so she can get to sleep. I talk to her really softly and slowly or massage her scalp or stroke her cheeks until she drifts off and I sneak out of the room. And more often than not she’ll wake up in the middle of the night and come into our bed.
It would be easy to become frustrated with this. Despite the fact that I think I would have really missed out if I hadn’t parented her to sleep all this time. And despite the fact that I enjoy the co-sleeping – even when I get kicked and punched occasionally.Which is why this article really struck a chord with me. It was a reminder that sometimes I can’t sleep and I stay up and watch TV, or I ask Josh to give me a massage, or I read a book, or I have something to eat. And sometimes I just can’t relax.The only difference is I’m capable of meeting my needs, vocalising them and in general helping myself. I don’t have someone telling me to get into bed when I can’t sleep. Or making sure I stay there.
It’s not always easy when all I want is some undisturbed sleep. But the next time I’m bored, frustrated or exhausted I will hold on to all of the things that make it just lovely. Like pudgy little arms wrapping around my neck in the middle of the night; or heavy eyes closing slowly to my touch, or chubby cheeks resting against my own for comfort.