Sleeping regime - Day Two

So I'm pretty sure I have tried some of this before and failed - maybe it is just that she is getting bigger - but today has been a great success on the daytime nap front.

Day 2 of the new sleeping regime and Mabel is currently having her second nap. That's right, second nap of the day! And both have been up in her cot which is absolutely unheard of.

I do know I am part of the problem, I see the hand chewing, hear the start of a grizzle and I think, "but she has only been up a couple of hours - is that right" and wait another half hour until she is past tired before trying to put her down. Which I now realise is definitely not the way forward.

So today I have been trusting my instincts and it seems to be working. Step away from the baby.

Now if I could just stop myself checking on her every half an hour....(even as I wrote this I thought I'd just nip up one more time and have now managed to stir her with the door opening. Serves me right).

Only a separate note we had to have bath time downstairs this week (Mabel that is, not me and G Kisby) which resulted in some naked tummy time on a big towel in the sitting room. I can't remember the last time she had time on her tummy naked so the experience must have felt really new.

We've been having major tears upon exiting the bath so also started a new routine of sitting her up and drying her head before lifting her out into a sitting position in the towel. We now get this face but no tears which is an improvement:

She was loving G Kisby rolling her from front to back and the time out of that nappy!

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...


  

A battle with myself!

You may remember me saying that our baby struggles to sleep in the daytime. No, that actually doesn't cover it, she is 'anti sleep', she will do anything to avoid sleep (eyes rolling but holding those lids open...just), she laughs in the face of sleep.

Now I can usually get round this, since a 12 week old who doesn't sleep between 8 - 6 can be quite hard going, by taking her out for a walk (ahhh, let's see you try and keep those lids open with a bumpy pram ride) or in the car (again, movement is my saviour). And we do both enjoy a good walk or tend to leave the house most days therefore a car journey provides a half hour nap or two.

However, I am realising that depending on such tactics may not work long term, it would be pretty handy to get a bit of washing done on a day when in the house and Mabel is so much happier and more playful if she has managed to sleep.

So yesterday I attempted to break these bad sleep habits.

Rather than waiting till she was tired (which I've fallen foul of in the past) after her mid morning feed (sucking her hand, yawning, all the signs were there) I popped her down in her basket, in her sleep bag and left the room.

And waited. Twenty minutes went by with her happily gurgling, occasionally snorting (nothing unusual there, Fee is right that I gave birth not to a baby but a little piglet) and cooing.
Twenty flaming minutes with no sign of sleep.

And whilst this was going on did I get on with my list of jobs? No. I sat outside her room peeping in the door like some sort of absolute loser. I emailed G Kisby (from the landing, sat with laptop on my knee) asking for reassurance that this wasn't neglect. I pretty much sat on my hands, quietly.
Thirty minutes later and the goos turned to tired cries. But by this time it was thirty minutes, I couldn't leave her alone for thirty minutes could I?

Downstairs again, now with a baby happily dozing on my shoulder (success? O.k not really - who am I kidding), I found a missed call and text from G Kisby, "if she isn't crying she'll be fine", "you're doing o.k, just leave her for a bit".

Dam it! Baby wins. Though in this case I'm not actually sure she even knew much about it...the battle was very much with myself!