Zzzzzzzzzz!

Sleep. When you're a parent of small children it becomes an obsession. When I'm awake I'm structuring our day to make sure both boys are stimulated and fed enough (but not too much) to make sure they are perfectly worn out and drowsy at night. When I'm asleep I'm usually concentrating very hard on staying asleep, and praying that I get enough to make it through the next day. Anything that disturbs the balance - a fever, a nightmare, the dog, a thunderstorm, a f**king jackhammer in the daytime, is met with an exhausted rage that would make me cry if only I had the energy. Quite simply, I live, eat and breathe sleep. After 12 weeks of getting 4 consecutive hours at the most, I am barely functioning, and definitely not "firing on all cylinders," as my husband so eloquently puts it. When anyone asks me how I am my response is usually, "so freaking tired." Sleep has become such a precious commodity that if someone offered me a choice between a gift of diamonds, or 24 hours, by myself in a hotel, I would take the sleep without giving it a second thought. It's boring I know, but I cannot think or talk about anything else until I get some sleep.

The old "sleep when the baby sleeps" goes out the window when you also have a toddler, and if there are less than 3 adults in the house, the chance to catch up evaporates faster than my patience. For something so essential to survival, I cannot believe that babies are born not knowing how to sleep. It's not rocket science kiddies! They don't know that they need it and as their parents you need to help them, for your sake as much as theirs. It's a delicate balancing act, and what worked for one kid might have the opposite effect on the other. So my days and nights have been spent tweaking things ever so slightly looking for the magic combination. Charlie doesn't like to be swaddled, and he sleeps better when the fan is on instead of the air-con. We need to give him a dream-feed, something we never did with Josh, and he prefers to go to sleep with white noise in the background, rather than music. It also helps when I am absolutely shattered and don't hear him fussing. I've been getting him up and popping a boob in his mouth whenever he stirred, pre-empting a crying fit which would wake everyone else, but it turns out I didn't need to. Last night we got the balance right, we found the holy grail, and the little guy slept for 12 solid hours! I slept through every whimper and grunt, and when he was done, Charlie just carried on sleeping. The urge to feed woke me before he did (they don't call it a let-down for nothing...) but I know now that he doesn't need to eat as often as I was trying to feed him. I'd be cross with myself for not figuring it out sooner if I wasn't so overjoyed. I feel like a new woman, like I could take on the world. I know there will always be bad nights, and tonight could very well be one of them. If I have learned anything from this parenting gig, it's that things always change just when you think you've got them figured out. But I have seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

It's official - Charlie can sleep through. Now we just need to convince his big brother to do the same...

For those of you in the same boat, you are not alone. This is old, but it still makes me smile - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xtcB457jqQ

A Slave to the Routine?

When I was at uni I used to babysit for a couple, friends of mine, on the odd occasion that they decided to trust someone else with the care of their only child, a 2 year old boy. They started their family fairly late in life and it was a battle to bring their little one into the world, so understandably they were very protective of him. They didn't leave the house until he was well and truly asleep and phoned every hour to check in. During the day everything they did revolved around his routine. Eating and sleeping were all carefully timed and were always done at home. The child was very sensitive to any changes in the routine but I was never sure what came first; did his parents develop the routine because he was a sensitive child, or was the routine so carefully planned, and his parents so highly strung, that the child became dependent on every day being exactly the same?

I was barely out of my teens at the time so I had no concept of what it takes to develop and maintain a routine for a small child. All I saw were 2 previously easy-going people letting a child determine absolutely everything they did and how they did it. I simply could not understand it. When I fell pregnant I spoke to friends with kids about what they did each day. I was surprised to find so many different opinions and methods just in my small social circle. It seemed to be a very personal decision, with most people swearing by whatever it was that they did. I decided a routine wasn't for me. I didn't know what the alternatives were but I thought we'd figure it out.

I've probably mentioned this several times before but when J arrived we battled with breastfeeding. He was naturally a 3-hourly feeder but it would take an hour and a half to get through each feed. Sometimes he fell asleep afterwards, other times, he lay awake until the next feed, sometimes he'd just cry for an hour, it was different each time and utterly exhausting. He never napped well, and would be overtired by 5pm, sending our evenings into complete disarray. It didn't take long to work out that he needed decent naps during the day to get a good sleep at night - oh, the irony! After 8 weeks of this I decided that maybe a routine wasn't such a bad idea and I started doing some research. We tried EASY (eat, activity, sleep, you time), and it wasn't. Then we tried some of the Baby Whisperer's suggestions, which were very similar, but wholly dependent on having a compliant child, which ours wasn't. I wanted something that was based on what our child needed, and I realised that the only way to get that was to work it out myself.

We fed him by the clock and if he fell asleep during a feed, we didn't wake him. We bathed him at the same time each day and made sure he didn't nap after 5pm.  It was hard work some days and we had some bad habits in place at times but suddenly at around 12 weeks J started sleeping through. We managed to muck that up when we went to Australia for a month, but we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and are always working towards that, even now. Over the last 6 months we kept working on it and perfecting the routine, and every time we thought we had it all figured out, everything changed again. For a few weeks there, J and I would get up together around 6, he'd have a feed and we'd curl up together in the big bed and nap for an hour or so in the morning. It didn't last long and I still miss those days! He kept growing and changing and as he did he needed less and less sleep. We went to 4 hourly feeds, then solids and 3 meals a day, and now finally we're down to 2 naps a day.

J is pretty flexible about when and where he sleeps during the day. If we're going out and he's tired, he'll nap in the car. As long as he has one long sleep in his cot every day he's happy. He does like to eat at the same time every day, which is fair enough, so do I. He's also pretty happy to eat on-the-go so that's flexible too. The only part of the day that I don't waiver on, ever, is bedtime. We have our nighttime routine so perfectly down pat, that I don't dare do anything to upset the balance. He has dinner, a bath, some dessert, a bottle, story-time and is in bed by 7.30pm at the latest. There was a time when I couldn't get him to go to bed for the night before 9pm so I am hanging on to this routine for dear life. I cherish my son and his company, but I love the time of day when he is in bed and I can sit quietly with my husband and not have to worry about anyone else. Our helper knows the routine and I know if I leave J with her, the evening will go down exactly as it would if I were here. But I have recently been faced with the dilemma of dinner invitations that include J as well. I find myself cringing at the thought of taking him out with us and disrupting the flow of our perfectly orchestrated bedtime ritual.

I haven't yet decided if one night is going to make a difference and throw off the whole week, or whether J will sleep regardless of where we are and what we're doing at his designated bedtime. It has been such a challenge to get to this point and it has always seemed like a fragile set up. I hear stories of children who don't go to sleep until 9, 10, even 11 o'clock at night and I'm terrified that that's just around the corner. I'm starting to realise that despite my earlier reservations about routines, we really need one; not for J's sake but mine.

Let Me Entertain You

* I've lost a few readers since I posted this last week, so I'm going to apologise in advance to anyone reading it for the first time. I know a lot of parents and kids out there love "In the Night Garden," and if that's you, I'm glad you've found something that makes your children happy. I'm frustrated over the lack of good TV shows for babies and toddlers and that is what was behind this post. Please don't take offence and forgive me for coming across as a bit of a know-it-all, I'm not like that normally!

I always swore I'd be one of those mothers who don't let their kids watch television. Obviously that was before I had children... Apart from a fascination with American Idol at a very early age, J was never interested in TV until recently. His older cousin is hooked on it and when we visited them a few months ago J was always trying to divert her attention away from Playschool so she could play with him. I was partly pleased that he wasn't interested but also mildly disappointed that I wouldn't have another babysitter. I shouldn't have worried because that's all changed in the last few weeks. We have a DVD called "I Like to Sing" by an Australian kids entertainer, Justine Clarke. It's upbeat, fun and partly animated, and J is just transfixed by the singing and dancing.

One night a couple of weeks ago I made the mistake of putting it on when J was steadfastly refusing to eat his dinner. Since then it has become increasingly difficult to feed him without the effervescent presence of Justine and her gang. As soon as we put him in his highchair he turns to the TV expectantly. Some days we manage to get in breakfast and lunch without turning the TV on, but by dinnertime J is ready to be entertained, no matter how appetising the meal or how hungry he is. We've tried toys and tricks, like giving him his own bowl and spoon to play with, but the only thing that will get him to open his little mouth is Justine. To save our sanity I've ordered another of her DVDs and two by the Wiggles, hoping for at least a little bit of variety at mealtimes.

I've not had much exposure to children's programmes in the past, so I was surprised when we started watching the dedicated children's channels on cable TV here. Unable to form sentences at 6am, let alone entertain J over breakfast, I generally switch on the BBC's children's channel: CBeebies. Some of the shows are quite clever and funny, even for mums and dads. We love Andy Pandy for the cute storylines and the ironic tone of the narration. Humf and Little Robots are sweet and always have a nice moral for the kiddies. Mister Maker is colourful enough to appeal to children as young as J and the ideas are clever enough that older kids love it too, and it's different every day so parents don't get bored. Then there are shows like In the Night Garden that can only have been written by someone who's had too much cough medicine. There's something about it that appeals to children on a cellular level. J just has to hear the opening tune and he stops in his tracks. We don't watch it in our house out of principle. I don't want my son thinking it's ok to ride around washing other people's faces, a la Macca Pacca, or skipping along repeating your own name over and over, like Upsy Daisy. I have similar feelings about the inanity of the Teletubbies and Waybuloo.

At the risk of sounding like a smarty pants, I have issues with shows that oversimplify language and talk down to children. As a teacher I've done a lot of research into language development and it's a fact that babies learn to communicate more efficiently when they are exposed to normal, everyday ways of using language. Talking in "baby talk" serves no purpose at all. They understand what we're saying much earlier than they're able to talk back, and the best way to ensure that they do talk back is to model how and what to say. Obviously when you talk to babies you change your tone and repeat yourself more often than you would normally, but "dumbing down" what you say to them can negatively impact on things like speech, comprehension and vocabulary development. So until my son's verbal enough to argue with me, I'll be in charge of the remote control. Yes, I'm going to be one of THOSE mothers...

I'm No Dummy!

For the purposes of this post I'm going to refer to dummies, also known to some of you as soothers or pacifiers. A conversation with my helper this week got me thinking about our dependence on a very small but necessary piece of rubber, and whether or not it's time to wean ourselves off it. J only uses a dummy to go to sleep. I've been very careful about not giving it to him to suck away when he's not tired. In the early days we started using one because he liked to fall asleep during or immediately after a feed and I needed my nipples back. We use a natural rubber dummy that's all one piece, so there's nowhere for germs to hang out. It's also eco-friendly, orthodontic and virtually indestructible. It's quite odd looking and brown, and we get a lot of comments about it. I once left J with friends for a few hours and they had a good laugh about it. They had heard that babies prefer dummies that most resemble their mother's nipples and they imagined that I must have breasts like a big African Mama (could not be further from the truth in case you were wondering!).

We've tried other dummies but J refuses to use any other kind. This is a problem at times because the ones we use are not available everywhere. We have to buy them from our GP's office in Discovery Bay. We had a shortage a couple of months ago and we only had two in the house. One night I was on my own with J and he happened to lose both of them somewhere in his room. I was frantically rummaging through cupboards at 3am while he cried his heart out, trying desperately to find something I could stick in his mouth. In the end my finger was the only thing that soothed him and the next morning I found both dummies tucked up between the mattress and the mosquito net. I also made a trip to DB that day and stocked up. I now keep at least 2 spare in the bedroom.

I had a friend complain one day that her boys would lose them in the night and she'd have to get up to put them back in. I was glad that J wasn't that dependent on his and smiled smugly. Then we went to Australia and he woke every hour and cried until I got up and put the dummy back in. Serves me right, I hear you say. He's now very good at finding it in his cot and putting it back in himself, but I'm beginning to worry that he can't sleep without it.

I have noticed that not many of the local children use them, and I have a few friends who are very anti-dummy. We were advised not to use one until we had breastfeeding sorted out, to avoid "nipple confusion". Within a few days of being born J was on a combination of breast and bottle so I didn't think one more nipple would make any difference, and we didn't have a problem. I've not given it much thought since then, until now. Last week my helper was telling me her niece, who is about 3 weeks older than J, never needed one to sleep. She started talking about how J really likes his, and implied that maybe it was time to let it go. I got quite defensive and made the point that he only has it to sleep so it's not a problem. That was the end of the conversation but I haven't stopped thinking about it. I don't think my son is addicted to his dummy, I think I am. It's so easy to pop it in his mouth when he's a bit tired and cranky, and to be honest I have no idea how I'd go about getting him to sleep without one.

A few months ago while we were checking into a hotel, a family walked in with 3 children aged about 2, 4 and 6, and all 3 of them had dummies in their mouths. I was pretty shocked but I can see how easily it could happen. I'd like to to wean J off his before it becomes too hard but I haven't worked out how. My grandmother likes to tell the now infamous story of how I came to lose my dummy. She hates the things and was looking after me one day when I was about 2 years old. My dummy happened to fall out of my mouth and into the toilet. She very quickly flushed it away and told me the baby fish had it now. I'm told I was pretty satisfied with this response and didn't ask for a dummy again. Perhaps I need to wait until J is old enough to buy a story like that and then try. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the peaceful sleep it brings.