Killing Me While I Sleep

Help! Once again my daughter is killing me! With continuous nights of interrupted sleep!

Every night, 2-3 times throughout, my heart sinks as I hear the click of her door then the pitter patter of her little feet heading my way. Yes, even though Daddy is nearest the door she bypasses him and heads straight for me. Often it's because she can't find her dummy which will be on the well hidden out of reach place of RIGHT ON TOP OF HER PILLOW! But that's not always the excuse, like last night I nearly poked her eye out fumbling around her face checking to see if she still had it. Sometimes she just wants to be put back to bed. Then there are the times when she is insistent that 5.30 is the perfect time to get up, bored now of being put back to bed - usually she will make out she is going back to bed then grabs me and makes me lie down with her, which I do for a few minutes then head back to my own bed. Then she waits just long enough for me to start drifting off again and - click pitter patter pitter patter - and that's it, she is dragging me towards the stairs "wreckfas, wreckfas" (breakfast if you don't speak Millie). I can sometimes get away with putting the TV on in the playroom to be entertained by Milkshake on channel 5 but it's rarely for long as the next I hear is the chair in the kitchen being dragged towards the fridge where, if I didn't get down there in time, she would be helping herself to the chocolate drawer! I usually do get there and then she has a tantrum that I won't let her eat chocolate for breakfast, even though it's the same every morning! We compromise with a bowl of chocorice.

But back to the nighttimes. I'm exhausted!  If she has woken me up a couple of times I've no energy to get up early to exercise (I have to get up at 5.45 if I'm to go for a run and 6 for strength exercises) and even if I was up (because she has woken me most likely) I can't face it or she sits on me while I try to do stomach crunches. My diet suffers as who wants healthy salads when they are tired. I go for the comfort foods. Come dinner time, after putting the kids to bed, I go for the simplest quickest thing to cook... And we order pizza!

My job as a trainer requires me to be enthusiastic and energetic if I'm to keep my learners engaged which either wipes me out more or, if I decide I just don't have the enthusiasm and energy in me that day, I lose the learners, the sleepiness becomes infectious and I'm faced with a room of yawning lions and I watch them switch off one by one.

So what can I do? How do I get her to stay asleep or even in bed all night, preferably to 6.30 or later?

I've been recommended the gro-clock before which shows a night picture and a day picture and the child, in theory, doesn't get up until the sun comes up. I know this has been really successful for others but I'm not sure that Millie will have the level of understanding for it yet (she is currently 2, 3 in August). They aren't cheap and I don't want to spend out a lot of money for something that won't work. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has had success with one for a child Millie's age.

The other idea is a reward chart but she doesn't really get those either. We have tried with potty training but, again, she is too young. If anyone else has any other suggestions or advice I'd love to hear it before she succeeds in killing me!

We have been here before with Millie as she has hit every sleep regression stage but this one seems harder to tackle.

The Last Regression

Once more I'm staggering round the house,

slurring my words and struggling to remember the day before but this time I can't blame the wine.

Nope! Millie has hit another period of sleep regression. The 2 year sleep regression! And hopefully the last. 

Millie usually wakes about twice a night. 

Now she will settle back again quickly once she is replugged with her dummy but a week ago on the second wake up, which could be anywhere between 5 and 6.30, she would come in to our room and look like she would settle but, instead, she would fidget and clamber all over me then eventually get out of bed trying to pull my hand demanding to go downstairs for breakfast. After a couple of nights of tough love and refusing to bring her into our room she started settling back down in her own room again. 

The constant cough and congestion can't be helping much either though neither of these appear to be the cause of her waking. 

I really hope we are near the end of the phase now otherwise the drunken stumbles will be the result of alcohol and not just the lack of sleep! 

Millie Moo, Look at You!

I've been observing Callum and Millie recently (as you do) and realised how quickly they are growing up! Thought it was about time I did an update here as before I know it the next entry will be of Callum starting work or Uni!

This post will be about Millie, the next about Callum.

 

Millie

Millie is properly toddling now. She is still so proud of herself. She pulls herself up from the floor and does her little zombie-style walk with her hands up in the air to balance her and her knees up to her elbows. Of course, like other little ones, before she has fully learnt to walk she tries to run and there have been a few face plants to the ground with the odd bloody lip but she bounces straight back.

[Children really do have more resilience and are much braver the younger they are - Callum is such a wimp now but used to be just as tough! But then Callum takes after his Daddy ]

Satisfied with the fact she can now toddle, her brain has switched to trying to speak mode - at last. With both children dragging their feet taking their time to do all the milestones I can't help beating myself up that I am the one holding them back somehow.

Anyway, Millie is focusing on certain words and things we say and trying to copy them. She says "goh" with her hands out for 'all gone' and she drops stuff (on purpose) and says "uh ooooh" for 'uh oh' which has moved on from purposefully dropping stuff and saying "no" while wagging her finger. She regularly says mumma and dadda and I'm pretty sure she knows what they mean but it is hard to tell. I try to get her to point to mumma and dadda in a photo or when we are there say "who's that" etc but she will rarely play along although nursery insists she does it with photos there.

We are trying to get her to ask for her dummy and muslin and she sort of says "dede" for dummy and "noonoo" for muslin but then she also says "noonoo" for anything she wants that is out of reach.

She loves pointing to our eyes and nose - and of course we love being poked in the eye and a sharp finger nail up the nostril!! On a couple of occasions now I have asked her where her own nose is and she has correctly pointed to it. Then if you say "clever girl" she will often start clapping.

So even if she isn't saying a hell of a lot, she is at least starting to understand words.

I was worried the other day when I read on a link (while researching at work) that a child of Millie's age should have a vocabulary of 10 words and I'm not sure she has that many but I've heard so many stories of children not speaking until they were 3 or 4 and then coming out with a whole sentence - Einstein being one of them, I think my brother-in-law was another. I’ve heard this is common for second children too as they have someone to speak for them or to get them whatever they point and grunt at. And, us as parents with our hands full and less time on our hands will go for the quick and easy option of just passing whatever it is they want rather than encouraging them to talk. So, in a nutshell, I've dismissed the worries, especially now she is showing an interest in learning to talk. I will endeavour to try to do the encouragement route rather than the easy one.

Millie loves books and will pick one up, turning the pages while babbling to herself as if reading the story. It's lovely to watch and hear.

She helps us (or often unhelpfully) dress and undress herself, putting her arms in the sleeves or arms up in the air to take off a top or pulls it off if you aren't quick enough getting it over her head. While doing the poppers up on her vest she starts trying to put her legs in her trousers. She also tries to put socks and shoes on...not necessarily her own!

She has a nose that permanently streams snot like lava from a volcano and detests you wiping it so will often sport a snake like skin across her cheeks as you try to wipe it and she frantically turns her head while making her distress known. 

She loves baths, happily splashing and swimming and she giggles lots when sharing a bath with Callum (though he likes to have the bath to himself). She also goes to bed very easily: pjs, grobag, milk and story, bed with dummy and mussie, Ewan the dreamsheep on, and off she goes - and usually wont wake until 7am ish. Though there is still the odd occasion of night wake-ups, usually due to teething or, like the night before last, just because she wants to party from 2.30 until 5am!!

I think Millie is going to be our little performer. She'll gravitate to a musical instrument, sing all the time to herself and loves to dance to the radio and mummy's cat squeals beautiful singing.

She is one little cheaky madam who can scratch your face just to see your reaction, throw a tantrum because you wont let her have chocolate for breakfast (another chocoholic in the family!) and she knows her own mind, for sure!

But what I love the most is how she smiles at you and you just can't help but smile back (even when telling her off). She is my (still diddy) little fairy.

Millie in January VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Sleep! Oh How I’ve Missed You!

It has taken 8.5 months, 2.5 months longer than her brother, but I can now confidently say (*bites lip & frantically searches for wood*) that Millie is sleeping through the night! For the past week, Millie has slept through from about 6.15-6.30 until between 6.15-7am every single night with just one stir around our bedtime for her dummy…in fact, she stirred last night then settled herself back to sleep without the dummy!

WOOOOOOHHOOOOOOOOOOOO! I FEEL HUMAN AGAIN!!!!!!

Forgive me but I feel that deserved to be shouted from the rooftops! With my search for work having begun, I was nervous about struggling to get up at the crack of dawn for work while still getting up in the night!

Strangely, it is now like my body has gone into catch up drive! Wanting to catch up on all that missed sleep from the last 9 months. I struggle to wake up and then feel exhaustingly tired around mid-afternoon! I can even go back to sleep if I wake up early – I never used to be able to do this; once I was awake, I was awake for the day.

Dreams are also on catch up. Not sure if you know this but when you don’t sleep much, you have less REM sleep (which is when we dream). Dreaming is our minds way of processing what has happened during the day and storing new things we have learnt etc. It is important for us to dream. So when we do get a good solid night of sleep, we tend to dream more to make up for the lost dream time before. So I have been dreaming lots of weird and wonderful things but nothing of interest to blog about (you really don’t want to know about how I couldn’t shake poo off my hand do you?!).

Anyway, back to Millie! Other than the sleep, not much else is new. She is eating with vigour, trying everything (EVERYTHING!!!) in site…well as far as she can bend in double & stretch to reach. Still no moving by way of roll, crawl, bum shuffle or commando crawl! Apart from the odd occasion when she rolls back to front in her cot & then complains because she is stuck! For the time being, I am enjoying being able to plonk her somewhere and for her to stay there so, although I don’t want to hinder her moving progress, I am happy for her to do it in her own time.

We have 2 teeth! Two teeny weeny but very sharp little bottom teeth! This is already making a difference with her eating. She actually uses the teeth to rip food off a bigger piece now.

            

Her babbling has a range of dadadadanananananalalalalalagagagagaga now and sometimes she sounds like she is trying to sing or have a conversation with you. So cute!

I feel she is on the verge of clapping. She loves watching what you do with your hands and occasionally brings them together but that’s as far as it goes.

She is at that age where everyone wants to talk to her! Supermarket shopping can double in time as we get stopped by every other person who wants to talk to her. I love it and feel so proud but it does make shopping to a restricted time-limit rather challenging!

Callum is lovely with her and apart from wanting to take ownership of all of Millie’s toys but not so keen to return the favour with his own, he really does love her and looks after her. I really hope (and I can see that it might) that stays with them throughout their lives as they grow up. Seeing them together I know we made the right choice of trying for a 4 year age gap.

I feel so very blessed!…and human!

Finding a Routine at 8 Months

My 9 months is nearly up and my hunt has begun!

Shortly before giving birth to Millie, Stuart and I discussed my plans for returning to work. It wasn’t a question of would I as I enjoy working – I love the adult interaction, I love my job (as an IT Trainer) and I’ve put a lot of effort into getting where I am in my career so I don’t want to give up on it yet. The question was when. I said I expected I’d be ready around 9 months and as that was when my Maternity Allowance ran out so money would be tight(er than it already was) it seemed like a logical plan. It did mean there would be a few months of full time childcare for 2, however, so finding a job that would cover those costs for those few months would be the biggest challenge.

Well, here I am with Millie just turned 8 months and my job search has begun! Mentally, I was ready to go back after a couple of months but my heart definitely wouldn’t have been ready then and is still struggling a bit now thinking of all the firsts I might miss. I was lucky that I had 18 months with Callum so got to see a lot of his firsts!

But, I know Millie will be fine and I will be a better mummy for working! I’m not me when I’m not working and think I’m often feel quite low as a result.

Anyway, all this talk of work is really unsettling me and making me quite anxious with so much going on in my mind. I may need to write another post to get it all out but for now my thoughts are turned to Millie and routines!

Up until now I have pretty much been baby-led. Not just with weaning but with everything. I’ve been relaxed and gone with Millie’s signals for what she wants when. Therefore, we haven’t really had any fixed daytime routine. We established a nighttime routine around 12 weeks (if not a little before) but Millie has otherwise been fed on demand (which is ‘usually’ 3 hours but sometimes more sometimes less), naps when she yawns and starts to grizzle and sleeps for an unpredictable length of time. When someone asks me about her routine or when she naps, for example if she is being babysat by my parents, its all a bit sketchy! But I realise, if I’m going back to work and Millie will be in full time nursery, they’ll want some kind of routine!

So, consciously but still led by Millie as much as possible, I’ve been trying to establish some kind of routine around times! Looking at her nap and bottle times, it does look like she may be naturally slotting into a routine herself. She still wakes up at random times between 6am and 6.45am so I’ll average that it is 6.30am and this is what I’ve noted for the last week:

6.30am – wake up, bottle, dressed
7.30-8am – breakfast
8.30am-9.15am – nap (45 minutes)
9.30am – bottle
11am-1pm – nap, bottle (2 hours)
1.15pm – lunch
4pm – bottle
5pm – dinner
6.30pm – bottle, bed (sometimes this is nearer 6)

At the moment I’m going to remain quite flexible around this times but keeping them in mind. She is still not guaranteed to sleep through every night – like last night she woke at 10.45 and wouldn’t settle then downed a whole bottle so its hard to be fixed during the day plus I find being too strict just causes me stress and babies do kind of do what they want to do whether you like it or not. As hard as they have been I do think I enjoyed the first 6 months a lot more than with Callum because I was more relaxed and therefore Millie has been a lot easier baby (aside from the not sleeping through at night until later).

Now….about that job….!

8 Month Sleep Regression

How did I forget?

I was lulled in to the false sense of sleep – Millie’s sleep pattern was not perfect but was definitely bearable. Usually having a bottle between 10pm and 11pm and then waking between 6.30am and 7.30am with the very rare occasion of going longer or, even rarer, all night! I was getting a good many hours sleep! I was starting to feel human again.

Then WHAM!

It hit me!

Out of the blue!

The 8 month sleep regression!

I’d forgotten all about it and started to panic that she was on the start of some bad habits! Callum was regularly sleeping through from 6 months from 7-7. We are yet to get a regular routine of this with Millie. I started beating myself up, as us parents regularly do, about being tougher on Callum than on Millie and therefore paying the price!

I decided it was time I took control (having relinquished the control to Millie for most of her 8 month life, being led by her), time I got tough and denied her these silly snacking bottles she had started having in the night! Operation sleep through started last night. She had slept through before I knew she could do it – hell, she could regularly sleep 7 hours straight when she was a few weeks old.

Last night, she went to bed easily, as she usually does, at 7pm then the first grizzle came about 10.30pm. I let her grizzle for a bit then thought I was more likely to get her to sleep until 7am if I was to feed her then so about 11pm I dragged myself out of the slow descent into dreamland and I fed her – she took about 3oz of a 7oz bottle. Groan! She could’ve had more!!!

Then around 3am she grizzles again. Hang on its only 3am, you can do better than that Millie! I got up and tried the dummy! Twice! I stroked her! I shhhh patted her! Several times I made it back to the bedroom and a couple of times actually back into bed…even just starting to get warm again….before she started the grizzle once more. By 4.30am, I couldn’t take any more and gave in. I knew she would sleep as soon as she had the bottle so I gave her the bottle. I expected her to guzzle it up. She didn’t, she had 3.5oz of another 7oz bottle. Rah! But, back to sleep she went with just a couple of soft murmurs.

Then, as I was documenting on Twitter my early morning '#nightfeed updates, I awoke to lots of lovely support and was also reminded about the 8 month sleep regression!

Relief! Its temporary!

I can relax, let her do her thing and wait for her to get over it! I may have to feed her a couple of extra times a night for a week or 2 but stressing wont make it go any quicker and its only temporary. She will start sleeping through again. She will! Will!

*starts rocking staring into the distance as Callum wipes the dribble from my mouth*

ETA: Great article on the 8 Month Sleep Regression

On the verge

In 5 days time, Millie is going to be 6 months old.

She is changing so quickly. Its hard to believe that it wasn’t only yesterday that she was a real babe in arms with her head supported in the cradle position.

Now she is sitting up…although still toppling a little bit. She can sometimes stay sitting up playing for a good 5 minutes unsupported. She loves sitting up too – fighting it if you lay her down or put her in her bouncy chair.

Despite showing early signs in both rolling and sleeping through the night…neither have been regular occurrences. She has still only rolled front to back and only a handful of times. She swings her legs and arches her back so that she nearly rolls over, she looks like a contortionist.

Sleepwise, she ‘usually’ doesn’t need feeding after a dreamfeed at around 10pm but that doesn’t mean she sleeps through. She has taken to waking up around 3am every night. Sometimes just needing a dummy or a cuddle, but more often she struggles to settle back to sleep with the dummy, falls off to sleep with a cuddle but wakes again when placed back in the cot. I eventually end up feeding her but not before I’ve already been awake for an hour and I’m not convinced she is waking for the feed. She cries differently.

We are going to try without the dreamfeed tonight to see what happens. I’m happy to feed her when she wakes but I remember the dreamfeed not working for Callum and I know she has been able to go for long stretches before now without the dreamfeed so it might work. The thing with Millie (and I’m sure many a baby) is that everything seems to work for the first couple of times then her sleep pattern gets all messed up again, whether due to teething, a new development stage, stuffy nose or just because.

Speaking of development stages, her latest trick is the bashing movement. As its new (this week) I’m quite excited by this. She hasn’t got enough strength to be too loud or damaging yet but I imagine as her confidence grows the loudness will come with it.

She is really into faces and wanting to explore them with her hands and she likes playing with my hair…when she is meant to be trying to get back to sleep at 3am!!

She has good hand to mouth co-ordination now which is great in light of starting to wean her next week. I’ve been giving her a spoon to play with at meal times and she loves a good chomp on that. She has a great expression when we’re eating as if to say “OK, so where’s mine?”, looking at the food, looking at me, then looking at the food again. I know this is curiosity and she has no awareness of what ‘eating’ actually is but its a positive sign that she will enjoy exploring this funny food stuff next week. She ‘may’ already have sucked on a banana and an apple core…oops!

You know, I think development phase may actually be the key to her unsettled nights! She is on the verge of so many things – very nearly rolling, just learnt to sit up, about to start weaning, having more control of her arms etc. She is also looking like she is going to change her nap cycle too as her first nap of the day can just be 10 minutes sometimes.

I think there are exciting times just around the corner…and may be even a little bit of sleep!

Hoping!

I Feel the Need, the Need to Dreamfeed

When Callum was a baby, I had heard of dreamfeeding. It is when, just as you go to bed, you carefully pick up your baby while they are sleeping, feed them, then carefully put them back in their cot – the aim is for them to stay asleep (hence the name) throughout the process but the dreamfeed gives them a little boost in the hope that they sleep through or at least sleep longer.

It had been very successful for many of my parent friends so I was eager to try it.

I’m not sure exactly when we started dreamfeeding Callum but I know by looking back through this blog that we were by the time he was 10 weeks. We then kept it up until just before he was 5 months old. What made us decide to stop was when I looked back at the sleep log I had kept since Callum was born, Callum was naturally doing OK on his own, gradually sleeping longer and longer in between feeds at night. Then from the time we introduced the dreamfeed, he started waking up more frequently – the time he would sleep between feeds was reduced.

The fourth night after we dropped the dreamfeed, Callum slept through the night for the first time from 7pm until 7.10am (after last feed at 6.30pm).

For this reason, I wasn’t in a hurry to try a dreamfeed with Millie unless I really felt she would benefit from it, and it would work!

Up until now, I didn’t feel it would be worth trying. Millie often woke around 10-10.30pm for a feed of her own accord (which is approximately when we would be doing the dreamfeed) and she would then sleep until 3-3.30am and then after 7am.

However, we were invited by our friends for dinner next weekend. My mum had agreed to babysit for both the kids but as my parents had spent a lot of time recently living out of a suitcase for various reasons they preferred that they looked after them at their own house rather than staying at ours. So for us, you would be forgiven in thinking, whoop whoop! A full night of sleep. Can you imagine?

BUT, with Millie still not sleeping through the night and could be up twice in one night, I worried for my Mum. I could tell she wasn’t revelling in the idea either and Mum thought Millie was sleeping through when she agreed.

Operation get Millie sleeping through began!

Millie woke at 10.30pm again one night but then slept through until 7am. I suggested to Stuart we try feeding her at about 10/10.30pm every night now whether she woke or not – so dreamfeeding if she didn’t wake on her own. She may fully well do it on her own every night but her nightfeeds are so changeable that we couldn’t rely on that and with the pressure of the night at my parent’s approaching, I wanted to take action to encourage her to do it again.

The first night Stuart successfully dreamfed her at 10pm. She then slept until 6.15am then happily nattering to herself until 6.45am. Clever girl – that’s what we like. So last night was the second night. We were watching a film which finished at 10.50pm so I fed her then. She stayed asleep throughout but then woke for her next feed at 3.30am. Boo, fail! I’m hoping it was just down to her having a dirty nappy.

I figure its worth continuing to try for this week, until we get this Saturday out the way and then make a decision as to whether we will continue it past then, depending on its success.

Tonight is a bit of a miss though as she has just woken for a feed at 9.30pm and she is a very stubborn young lady – she will only feed if she is hungry and there is no convincing her otherwise! This 9.30pm feed will have to be her last one until she wakes again during the night (if she does). Fingers crossed she’ll sleep until 7.

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A little thought to finish on – despite all this effort to get her to sleep through, after some tragic news on Twitter and in the Blogging World this weekend, part of me welcomes her waking in the night for another cuddle & reassurance. My thoughts are with the family that wont have that opportunity tonight.

My Babies–General Update

 

Callum

I’m going to start with Callum as I’m just so excited to tell you about his swimming. I’m so very proud of him. He is moving up from Pre-School Level 2 swimming to Pre-School Level 3. He has got a certificate and his very first swimming badge!

To achieve this award, Callum had to be able to do the following:

• Jump unaided but supervised into the water
• Submerge completely
• Rotate through 360 degrees either horizontally or vertically
• Show a mushroom or star float
• Travel 10 meters on the front or back without assistance
• Climb out of the water with assistance if needed
• Buoyancy aids may have been used during the completion of this award

To many this may not be anything special but to me it’s amazing.

My own memories of swimming lessons at school (age 7-11) were messing around playing ‘don’t touch the floor or the crocodiles will get you’; dodgy pink flowery (granny) swimming hats if you made the mistake of forgetting yours; and cheating for my 50 meter badge by walking on the bottom of the pool then splashing my leg up every once in a while. There was also the occasional visit to our local leisure centre on a Sunday with my parents where my dad tried to teach me to dive, starting with the pixie dive. I regret not putting more into my swimming as I’m really not a very strong swimmer and I don’t have a great deal of confidence. I can hold my own in the pool but my front crawl resembles a shark attack and the most lengths of a pool (which was about half the size of an olympic pool) I’ve managed is 24 and I was extremely proud of myself!!!

To put it into context as to what this certificate actually means to Callum’s swimming ability – he is a long way off being able to swim confidently without buoyancy aids, though he can do about 2-3 meters on his own but he has so much confidence in the water and I hope that in turn will be a benefit to his confidence overall when he starts school, being as he is usually show shy and intimidated in big groups of people.

Millie

Now for Millie’s turn!

Basically, she is still gorgeous! She hasn’t rolled much more, from front to back (finding the right time when she isn’t going to puke just after a bottle but still has enough energy before naptime is a challenge!) and she hasn’t mastered back to front yet but she is often really close. She loves her feet which hold her attention much longer than any toy. Her grab & hold is also improving.

But better than all of this is that we have had a couple of sleep throughs – well from about 10.30pm until 7am or 11.30pm until 7am or 6.30pm until 4.30am (although there was a dummy replacement). Its all definitely moving back in the right direction. We actually had about 4 consecutive nights of what I would call a sleep through (admittedly not 7-7 but where I got some good solid sleep) then she went back to waking every 4 hours again which was a killer. Having given me a taste of what she could do, she then took it away. But I put this down to her experimenting with how much milk she needed during the day to get through the night. At the same time as she was sleeping through, she naturally started going 4 hours between feeds during the day and started consuming more milk at each feed but then she reverted back to feeding every 3 hours. Then, the 2 previous nights (excluding last night) she had much better nights again with the 11.30pm to 7am being the night before last. Unfortunately, last night we were at a family party and stayed at a hotel so her sleep was all over the place but that’s the first time away from home since she has been out of the moses basket. She had to spend a large part of the night in her buggy in the corner of a room where there was (loudish) live singing taking place – in fact she was awake for 2 hours just staring around the inside of her buggy but she didn’t complain and didn’t want milk. Eventually when she just wasn’t going to sleep, I took her out for a little dance and for the relatives to all coo over her before putting her back in the pushchair at the end of the night just before we were leaving when she went straight back off to sleep! When we got back to the hotel, she didn’t settle well straight away and then woke after 4 hours. Hopefully, though, this was all down to the new environment and tonight will be much better again.

Two sleeps beyond!

We have survived night two of Millie in her own room/cot. Much of it was the same but it somehow felt better.

After her anti-boob protest and just wanting a snuggle each time she woke the night before, I had decided to not offer to feed her unless she wouldn’t settle or ‘asked’ for it.

The night started very similar to the night before in that she went into her cot at about 7.30pm after her 7pm feed and finally drifted off about 9pm, though she did require a bit more ‘attention’ to get off to sleep than the night before.

Then we headed to bed at around 10.30-11pm but this time she didn’t wake…not until midnight!. So, I didn’t offer to feed her, I tried to settler her in her cot but she wasn’t having any of it so picked her up for a cuddle until she calmed and I put her back down. It didn’t take long, five minutes at the most.

Then, like the previous night, she woke at 2am and again just required a cuddle. As I put her in her cot again, her dummy fell out so I thought she need a bit more comforting but no, she was happy to continue to drift off without any trouble.

This was taking a familiar pattern so I expected the next 5.30 wake but this time she wasn’t settled by just a cuddle so I sat in the nursing chair and she nuzzled towards my boob so I offered it to her and she fed, hooray! No effort from me, completely her request.

I laid her back down in her cot and, after a couple of revisits to pop her dummy back in, she drifted back to sleep until 7.30pm. Unfortunately, my mind couldn’t stop thinking about the alarm due to go off in 3/4 hr so my morning pretty much started at the 5.30 mark but Millie woke happily chatting at 7.30am.

 

Minutes before she woke

This all means that she definitely doesn’t need feeding between 7pm and 5.30am so now we just need to get her to self-settle and continue to sleep through that period. Stuart thinks we should take away the dummy now to encourage her to depend on herself for getting back to sleep and not requiring us to get up to pop the dummy back in. This makes me nervous, but maybe he is right. I am pretty sure she’ll go for her fingers/thumb though. I’m on the side of anti-thumb sucking and pro dummy, as you may have worked out, so I’m not too keen on this but at least her h-Andes are on the end of her Armies (teehee, poor joke!) so she’ll be able to work out soon enough how to use them. She currently likes her muslin and I am trying to get her attached to her bunny comforter which helps. She snuggles them against her face and twiddles them with her hands so we may be lucky in that she just makes use of those sleeping tools.

In addition, we have Ewan the Dream Sheep that I have heard such good things about on order which may be another advantage on the ‘war on sleep’. Looking forward to testing it out when it arrives and I’ll be sure to report back!

In relation to sleep, I have also put Millie in her cot for actual ‘naps’ three times today. Only for 45 minutes to an hour for each (well the first two, she has only just gone down for the third) but I’m pleased at that for a start. The first she woke up happy, the second she was grizzly and really needed longer. Lets hope this third nap is successful and she wakes up happy again.

Y’know, I shouldn’t say this after all the effort we are going to to move Millie into her own room but I do miss her in our room – that space next to the bed where she used to big seems mighty big now!

She’s moved out!

Of our bedroom that is! We have taken the step of putting Millie to bed in her cot in her own bedroom! The first night of trying this was last night.

It started well, Stuart got both Callum & Millie ready for bed and then I sat in Millie’s room in the nursing chair and gave Millie her bottle. She was quite snoozy by the end of it so I was hopeful it wouldn’t be long until she was settled & asleep in her cot but she woke when I transferred her. Both Stuart and I hold Millie in our left arm which means we have to do a bit of a flip to put her in her cot at the correct end (away from the radiator!). But, despite her waking she was happy so we headed downstairs.

There, with the monitor set up and sat on the floor in front of us (so we could see it), my eyes were fixed on the little green flashy light that tells us she is still breathing, ironically holding my breath! I confess, I wasn’t desperately wanting to make sure she was breathing, I’m thankfully not overly neurotic and although I find it reassuring to see the flashing light, I am quite relaxed in thinking she will be ok. No, I was just willing the transfer to cot would work and that I wouldn’t be up and down the stairs a hundred times to settle her or spend the whole evening in her room. I had a glass of red waiting for me goddamnit! The flashing is slow & rhythmic if she is sleeping and gets quicker and erratic if she is awake. She was quiet but the light was erratic so I knew she wasn’t yet asleep.

She grizzled a couple of times which required us to go up and resettle her with little effort, then she was happily chirping for a bit and then there were a couple more occasions when she needed settling but she then drifted off by herself around 9pm (milk time was around 7.30pm).

The rest of the night wasn’t that great. Not AWFUL but not great. Stuart said it was the toughest night for him since she was born because he woke every time she did whereas normally he might only wake for the odd feed.

Millie stirred as we were going to bed just after 11pm. She refused booby and got a bit hysterical that I had the audacity to offer it to her. But she snuggled in my arms & returned to sleep so I put her back in her cot.

She work again at 2am and the same thing happened. Refused the boob but went back to sleep. Then she woke at 5.30 which wasn’t too bad. Still keeping up the anti-boob protest but again went back to sleep though with a little more effort this time. Finally, she stirred at 6.30am and finally took the boob but didn't really settle back to sleep in her cot and by this time I was shattered as each time I went to her I was awake for about half an hour so I took her into our bed. I was desperate for some sleep so Stuart held her in his arms while we both got a couple of hours more snooze (not sleep as there was a baby in the bed with us).

I reckon she woke up for food but couldn’t have been too hungry to go back to sleep so easily – perhaps she has been waking up more from habit than hunger?!

Now we are on night 2 and, although it wasn’t quite as easy to get her to settle into her cot, she still wasn’t too bad and went off again about the same time – 9pm. For the rest of the night, I don’t know what to expect or how to tackle it. If she wakes like she did last night, I will on first instance try to settle her again and not assume that she wants feeding first off. If she wont settle I guess I will still try to breastfeed her but I really think she is weaning herself off it (weaning sounds gradual, she is going for flat refusal). So looks like I wont be able to keep up the night time BF but instead will be moving to all bottle. I tried a couple of times to offer her the breast during the day (just to give me some comfort or to see what she would do) but she wasn’t having any of it!

I am optimistic, however, that this is the start of her going through the night. She obviously didn’t need the food to go so long without it and to still settle back to sleep so perhaps (big perhaps maybe) she will be sleeping through before we know it! Fingers crossed!

It could all go to pot though with her screaming house down for food meaning me going downstairs to get a bottle – I have bottles prepared and in the fridge, just in case.

Wish us luck. I know it is most likely that this anxiousness will only last a week, if that and we’ll have it sussed this time next week – I really hope so! I think it was 3 days with Callum.

Uh oh – 9.45pm and she is shouting (shouty cry that is). Ahhh, all settled again (damn that dummy!).

11 Week Update

So we have been a family of four for over 11 weeks already and the time has flown by!

Millie is so alert and is so easy to make smile. She is trying to laugh and chat back to you in her own little “agoo” way. I remember Callum’s babbling started exactly the same. She is really into her hanging toys on her play gym, giving then a good bash - although not interested in anything handheld like a rattle as of yet.

She is strong and is much happier to be left on her front, lifting her head up than her brother was, though she soon gets fed up and starts trying to swing her legs over. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was rolling before Christmas.

After some up and downs with the whole ‘to bottle feed or not to bottle feed’ dilema, we are now on bottle feeding in the day and breastfeeding at night & for the first feed of the morning. I am happy like this and would like to keep feeding this way for as long as possible. It suits us! It, of course, means I am solely responsible for all the night time feeds and can not spend a night away from Millie at the moment (I could of course express so someone else could do a night feed, but I wouldn’t want to at the moment – certainly not until we’ve been feeding like this for a few more weeks) but I’m happy with that and its not forever.

I am also incredibly proud of myself for achieving my breastfeeding goals – to feed longer than with Callum and to feed off both breasts not just the left. I am also proud have managed to maintain it this long. Its been hard work and there were so many times I wanted to pack it all in at the start but sheer bloody-mindedness kept me going on!

Now for the next challenge! Actually, I am staying pretty relaxed about it (most of the time) rather than thinking of it as a challenge. I’ve remembered the “they’ll do things in their own time” mantra. I have started to try to put Millie down awake so she soothes herself to sleep. It doesn’t work every time…in fact most of the time…but it does occasionally and soon there will be enough of a pattern to her days that we can get some clear routine in place for naps and we can introduce her to sleeping in her cot.

Its through all these stages that I really miss not having an NCT group like with Callum. I have some Mummy ‘friends’ on Twitter who have had babies around the same time and we do tend to ask one another questions but it isn’t the same as when all the mums and babes would meet up from week to week and discuss every inch of our child’s development & routine and compare (in a good way) to one another – not to mention the support everyone gave each other.

We had Millie’s first photoshoot session today. No idea how the photos will turn out. I had a number of outfits but only got a couple in one of my favourites and didn’t get to wear the last one as she started to have enough – not helped by the hiccups. She lasted a good half an hour though and there were some smiles. It will be good to see the results. Hopefully there’ll be at least one nice one anyway!

Callum is just starting to show a little resentment of Millie now. Not anything too obvious or anything nasty directed at Millie but his neediness of us is increasing. We are trying to encourage him to be self-sufficient. Stuff he has been able to do for ages but gets lazy and relies on us for, such as getting dressed himself, cleaning his teeth etc as well as ensuring he remembers his manners etc. He sometimes pushes back on these things for attention and to get some more one on one time with us. He often holds on to one of us for that little extra bit longer too and isn’t so willing to leave nursery at the end of the day. I’m trying to find some time to do things just for him, if Millie is sleeping in her moses basket, I’m trying to sit down with him and play. Unfortunately, these occasions aren’t often enough as we are frequently out and about, have company or Millie is in my arms but if the opportunity is there, I’m trying to take it. I was today also pointing out just how ‘boring’ Millie is at the moment because she can’t do anything & just eats milk and how much he can do because he is a ‘big boy’ and that he gets to eat nice things like chocolate. I think a little of it sank in. 

Despite this, he is still lovely with her. I can already see the protective big brother side of him, even with them being so small. If she cries he will take her bunny to her or pop her dummy back in her mouth. Then he got most upset today when Stuart kissed him goodbye but didn’t kiss Millie as he went into work.

I was looking at a photo of them together the other day and I just get this feeling they are going to be good friends when they are older.

Callum says he loves Millie and at nursery last week when talking about what makes them happy he said Millie. I don’t quite believe him and am not sure where that came from but it was very sweet.

At 4 weeks new

Millie is now 4 weeks and 5 days old. Where has the time gone. In a blur! (from tired eyes as well as going so fast!)

I'm torn at the moment between wanting to savour each day while she is so small to hoping for this relentless newborn stage to be over so we can have some kind of routine established!

If I compare Millie's progress to Callum's, much of the challenges I'm going through are the same as what I went through with Callum...the unsettled evenings taking ages to soothe to sleep! The put down game where just as you get them asleep, if you try to put them down, they are awake again in seconds or, if you manage for any length of time it will be 20 mins, just long enough to fool you that you've cracked it this time so you focus on a menial task like emptying the dishwasher or more commonly you take an opportunity to try to to fix a meal when you hear those familiar cries and you have to start all over again.

But there are also elements that are better this time round like she will usually only wake the once in the night for a feed and has even managed a couple of 6 or 7 hour stretches which we didn't get with Callum so I should be grateful for getting more sleep however I appear to be struggling more with sleep deprivation this time and guess I have to put it down to age! Things only get harder as you get older.

The breastfeeding isn't really improving yet, in fact it's getting worse as now my nipple has an infection. I'm not surprised, in fact, I am surprised it's taken this long as an open wound being exposed for that length of time is at a high risk of being infected. The breastfeeding advisor has checked my latch and it all looks well except perhaps I wasn't pushing Mille onto my breast forcefully enough so maybe the latch wasn't deep enough. I'm now trying hard to shove her onto my boob and willing this to be the solution and that along with the antibacterial cream, fucidin, that I've been prescribed, my nipple will finally heal. I'm desperate to experience pain free feeding so I can get to the point that feeding is actually an enjoyable experience to some extent or at least to be able to enjoy the convenience of it without dreading a feed! Friends have also advised to try expressing that side for a coupe of days or to go back to nipple shields to let it heal, based on their own experiences, so I may try one or both of those approaches too.

Despite all this it's all made better by the fact I'm getting lovely smiles now. It's true what they say that they learn these skills with perfect timing to make all the crappy stuff seem worthwhile. Three weeks is early for smiling but I know this isn't wind, it's a very different smile. It lights up her eyes and her whole face.

Bring on the next feed and/or sleepless night!

 

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