Yet another sleep battle...

So we are back to some sort of normality for now on the night front (i.e just getting up once around 3am, which I can deal with). But for weeks, as I think I may have mentioned previously, I have been in a mini battle over day time sleeps.

 Now I know I can't expect too much at her age and I have been 'getting round' the issue by always ensuring we are out and about which normally involves a pram walk or car trip, i.e a sleep en route. But when we don't leave the house it can be really really trixy. Our friend Sarah kindly borrowed a motorised chair for us to try and occasionally it does the trick, but I swear she becomes wise to it! Appropriately I couldn't find a picture of Mabel asleep for this post.

"She just gets bored of being inside all day," I try to justify.

"I'd do anything just for a lunch hour, just an hour in a day to get some stuff done" I plead to G Kisby who suggests tactfully that I maybe need a little more self discipline (not in those words, obviously, or this would be a blog post about our a post baby separation).
But with the lack of car and some bad weather I think its time to face the fact that yet again I am in a power struggle with a 3 month old who is somehow persuading me to leave our house daily just to cater for her sleep habits!

Our friends Jodie and Rodger are having a similar battle with their gorgeous, also slightly more challenging (aka bright - it's what all parents who have a challenging baby tell themselves) baby Belinda. Jodie informed me this week that a new daytime sleep regime has been implemented and is working, so we have decided to do the same.

Yesterday we tried to put her down in her pram, prior to her getting grumpy and over tired, in the hope that she would just drift off. A short while later she hadn't, and jumpy Mum started getting all, "oh my God we're those parents you see in a pub mid afternoon on a week day with their children strapped into a pram feeding themselves a bottle as they drink cider" (I don't like to over react you realise).

So I ploughed on in and picked her up only for G Kisby to glance at me knowingly when 10 minutes later I was having to complete a seriously flamboyant rendition of 'I went to the animal fair' to stop her wailing. And so the day continued in a similar vein as our over tired baby refused to sleep until bed time. Seriously she laughs in the face of sleep.

Another day, another sleep battle. And this time I was prepared. Unfortunately the routine didn't start well this morning due to an emergency trip to B&Q for another piece of flooring for the bathrom (don't ask - http://nellyseggs.blogspot.com/2011/05/brand-new-bathroom.html) but then once home I fed her, noticed the hand chewing (sleep signal) and popped her in the pram. There was some grizzling but I held on for the 15 minutes I had told myself and just as I was texting G Kisby to say, "I can't do it, she just won't sleep" it suddenly went quiet. Result.

And this was not my only learning point today, since 15 minutes later Mabel seemed to realise she had been duped into sleep and woke up again. Now normally I'd have been right in there, guilt taking over for leaving her at all, scooping her up almost whispering an apology for the whole escapade. Luckily, but 5 minutes earlier I had been texting Jodie my success story who had promptly replied explaining that on the previous day she had picked B up after just a half hour sleep which wasn't long enough, resulting in an unhappy baby.

Hereby launches my new mantra - step away from the baby.  I did and she is now still asleep, one hour, that's right, one whole hour later. I've been able to eat lunch with both hands, write this blog entry, go for a wee (toilet is back so I'm now just weeing for fun) and she is still asleep. Thank you Jodie!

So it's only day one (technically, yesterday doesn't count, we were just making our game plan) but so far so good...