Who are you sweet baby?

I love a good turning-one-year-old-post. I’ll probably do one myself when the time comes [note to self: 3 months to come up with something good].

Bianca Bean recently wrote one that melted my heart. 

As hard as times are in the early days, they do grow and develop and become ever more wonderful day by day. I laugh as the Imp develops his own sense of humour, he makes me laugh, he laughs when I laugh as if he really gets my joke. It’s the sweetest. And despite all the sleep deprived days and nights, I wouldn’t trade him at all. Parenthood truly is wonderful.

And while we’re on the subject of giveaways …

Crunchy domestic goddess is giving away super cute tshirts with halloween designs from Cute as a Bug.

Teething keeping you up?

The lovely Isil at Veggie Way is giving away an Amber Teething Necklace from Little Sunflowers.

Let us know if it works in getting you a little extra shut eye.

We are Top Mommas (of course we are)

Please visit and click on the naked baby on the scales to keep us on Top Momma.

Getting through the day …

I used to be of the school of thought that you should suffer through a cold. You should grab a bottomless hot lemon and manuka honey drink and throw your doona on the couch for the duration, subjecting yourself to reruns of friends and updating yourself on Oprah’s latest weight struggle.

No more. Give me the panadol. The nurofen. The cold and flu tablets. For heaven’s sake get me one of each enticing packet that the pharmacy has on offer. I’ve got a 9 month old to look after, and he won’t let me lie on the couch for hours with Oprah as my best friend.

So I still fall back on the faithful natural rememdies, but with a few pharmaceuticals to get us through. It’s the same as with sleep really, you’ve just got to do what you can to get through in the best way that you can.

And if you need to take anything while breastfeeding, you can get great information from the Breastfeeding Network’s Drugline.

Bad Habits!

Just when I thought it wasn’t possible for me to make any more ‘mistakes’ in my attempt to get monkey boy to sleep through the night…I’ve gone and added another one!

I think it’s what Tracey Hogg refers to as ‘accidental parenting’!

I’ve started to let my little boy (I don’t think I can get away with the term baby anymore)fall asleep on the bed beside me!

The routine used to be that he was put in his cot and we had hand holding and singing until he fell asleep. Somehow in the last week I have started to let him get into bed with me, we sing a few songs, he has some milk and before you know it he’s out like a light!

The first 2 nights I then lifted him into his cot. By the third night I figured what’s the point as we co-sleep from midnight anyway so I left him in peace snuggled up in our bed. Oh Lord what have I done!

There’s no denying it makes bed time much easier for me as it cuts the settling time to 10 minutes but even my incredibly supportive and co-sleeping advocate of a husband thinks going to sleep in our bed is a step too far.

So tonight I have the dreaded task of going back to our roots and putting him to sleep in his cot.

Wish me luck!

Pachelbel Bedtime

Thanks to Laura  for giving me a laugh today.

Nap update

Today the Imp’s first nap was 10 minutes. Ah, sweet 2 steps back.

Nap guilt

Some of the best selling sleep books would have you believe that naps must be at home. And they must be long. And they must be regular as clockwork.

Today the Imp wouldn’t go to sleep at 1.00 (like the books say). He wouldn’t go to sleep at 2.00. Oh drama! I’d fed him to the point where I thought he’d fall asleep but no. He cried everytime I left him in the cot. So I got him up and we played, and he was happy. At 3.00 I thought I would try again. This time perfectly happy to go to sleep.

So why do I feel pressured to get him to nap at a certain time? Why do I feel guilty when I have him nap in the pram for my own convenience?

I think it all stems from having a baby that didn’t sleep well at night. So many people and sources try to pin the bad nighttime sleep on bad daytime sleep. So for a long time I was obsessed with getting the naps sorted, into the perfect 9am and 1pm sequence. Did this ever improve nighttime sleep? There doesn’t seem to be a particularly strong relationship from my point of view.

I have spent a lot of time battling with naps, at one early point sitting in a darkened room for most of the day trying to find that ever elusive nap-in-the-cot-in-the-day phenomenon. Then we fought with the 30 minute nap. Apparently that is not a whole sleep cycle and therefore it’s restorative value is dubious. We did naps in motion, naps in prams, naps in slings. The feed-to-sleep naps, the co-sleeping naps. The skip-a-nap day. The ‘have-an-extra-nap-in-the-afternoon-because-the-others-weren’t-long-enough-and-the-Imp-is-still-tired’ kind of day.

Well, I’ve got a new goal. To relax about naps. To not be house bound because of my paranoia about bad napping. To not worry if the Imp decides to do 30 minutes occassionally.

I met a lady yesterday who has a 3 year old who has never napped in the house. Only in the pram. The mother is not fussed about it, she gets a lot more freedom and do things. And the child is fine. Happy, bubbly, does not appear sleep deprived. Sleeps well at night.

Naps … I won’t care anymore.

[update: after FINALLY going to sleep at 3pm, he only slept for 30 mins, so serves me right for writing this post!]

Things I will not be doing again

Now Loudboy is nearly one (where did the time go?) it’s a good time to reflect on his first year and the things I will definitely not be repeating if (IF) we have another baby.

1. Settling to sleep in his cot.  Took weeks and many tearful nights (me and him) where I was trying for hours to get him to sleep from a sleepy/awake state in his cot.  I had read the books.  This was Important.  What they don’t tell you is that as soon as you manage it they have a big developmental spurt/develop separation anxiety/restart teething and refuse to do it ever again.  Save yourself the angst until they’re ready to do it by themselves.  Oh, and it makes s** all difference to the number of wakings/settling themselves back to sleep/going back to sleep in the cot. 

2. Consistent naptime/bedtime routines.  Again, takes ages and then everything changes (see 1).

3. Getting the baby out of your bed and into the cot.  See 1.

4. Worrying about breastfeeding.  Loudboy fed well from the beginning.  He just fed often: every 2 hours (or less during a growth spurt) for the first five months.  He was gaining weight, was happy and settled, developing well, so of course I didn’t worry if he was getting enough/latching on well/feeding too often.  Ha. Of course I did.  Completely pointless.  Feed the baby when he’s hungry, get used to feeding in public and ignore anyone who tells you babies only need to feed every 3 or 4 hours.

5. Worrying about weaning.  You get to 6 months, offer a bit of pureed carrot and they refuse it!  Disaster!  They will starve!  Er, no.  Takes some babies longer to get interested in food, but they get there eventually.  Loudboy now chomping his way through three meals a day and pinching everyone else’s food when he can get away with it.

6. But the books say… Endless arguments with my husband as I was wearily trying to get Loudboy to sleep/eat/nap ‘but The Books Say to do this’.  Husband: ‘It’s a waste of time, it isn’t working, give up and do something else’.  I hate to say it, but he was right.  Dammit.