Studies in sleeping

This is going to have to be quick; Braeden went down for his second morning nap half an hour ago, so he's due to wake up any moment. I have great plans (!!!) to get some reorganising of the office completed today, plus get the Thank You cards printed & sent (!!!!!!!!!!) hence my hurry.

He now has at least four naps a day. Some are power naps of ten minutes or so; some are as much as an hour. The evening still evades me, as it's a bit of a juggle avoiding the Arsenic Hour meltdown whilst keeping kidlet awake enough to make night sleep a possibility. We'll find the balance sooner or later.

Hopefully sooner, which is why (starting tomorrow when he's 12 weeks old officially) I am going to start a journal to see if I can identify more subtle patterns within patterns.

Going to bed is now quite straight forward. You keep him up until he's ready/eager for bed, and then you stimulate him a tiny bit more with a story or a wee play. This heads off the "Ah, now what's THAT???" attention flip that used to throw a spanner in the bedtime works.

Then it's in to the very darkened bedroom (blankets nailed up over and beneath the lined curtains!), and hey presto, one sleeping child, tantrums not required.

No shit Sherlock. Within a minute of placing him in his bed, you're out the door and he's snoring.

(That weird sound you hear is my happy dance; hey it's hard to be a fairy elephant when you've got flat feet.)

And (get this.. are you sitting down?) For the past two nights he's slept through from his very late last minute top up midnight snack (11pm) to 6am. He actually **starts** waking up at around 5 (dawn) but it takes about an hour for the wriggles to become full on fist-munching growlies that are impossible to ignore.

Well okay, yesterday I did try, but ten minutes later he melted down so scrub THAT idea, Murgatroyd!

The trick to nixing the 3am wakies was to go up a size in nappy (ie, more absorbency), and to employ the "dummy instead of a feed" technique when he wanted to sate his oral fixation. Okay.. well we actually put another step in there as well. For two nights instead of his usual 200 mls, he got 50 mls on a very slow teat. Both times he fell asleep before finishing, which meant he really didn't need the caloric intake, he was just hooked into the habit of sucking on something. If not for his wet nappy, he probably wouldn't have stirred at all. A question posed on the Trade Me notice board elicited the suggestion of going up a size for the night nappy, and that solved THAT little problem!

Six hours straight, two nights running. Wooobloodyhooo!

Yesterday I sorted through his clothes, and only kept out what he still fits. Um.. 6-9 months sizes, plus a few "1" sizes. Ohkayyyy.. and you're not quite three months old yet, sproglet!

The outgrowns (some never worn, including a LOT of knitting!) are going to be boxed up today and put away for the next baby. The one that we keep trying to find time to get started on, except every bloody time, Braeden wakes up and says "MY time! Me, now. NOW NOW NOW NOW!"

Do you think he knows, and is trying to prevent any rationing of later attention?

Anyhoo, he's totally thriving, bless him. He now sits up in his high chair, playing with his toys (which are threaded on a cloth rope so he doesn't drop them), watching TV. This development means there's another activity in his rather full day, right alongside playing in his play pen, going for walkies with Mum in the country, massages and tummy time on the bed, and of course story time and big discussions.

I read a good tip yesterday; for tummy time, put a mirror in front of them so that they are "rewarded" with something interesting to look at when they push up. Braeden noticed the boy in the mirror for the first time the other day - not for the lack of opportunity, I might add, he just didn't give a toss before.

This time was different, and was so totally engrossing that it stopped a particularly annoying batch of hiccups within a few seconds.

Ah. I hear wriggly stirrings coming from the bedroom. Heck, THAT was a good sleep! Nearly an hour, quite unusual for this time of day :-)

Coming, darling!
(photos to come, camera playing up)