We have signed up with kiddiecare to look at the sleep patterns of both babies and parents over a month period to record mine and Ella's sleep patterns and also to record our moods as we do this, these will be recorded on a sleep diary one for each of us.
Our sleep set up and my beliefs
- We co sleep, and have done since day dot and nothing will change that unless she chooses to sleep else where on her terms.
- I sleep with my children, i choose to sleep with them and they want to sleep with me. I am not for Victorian values of placing your child in a separate room and shutting the door and leaving them to cry it out causing un necessary anxiety of abandonment and upset. My opinion and beliefs are that most of the world sleep in family beds and it is only rich westerner that can afford houses with separate rooms to place different family members in to sleep.
- I do things on demand and rely very much on instincts and i learnt to trust my instinct from the many fights and struggles of trying to get my first child to sleep and failing. When Ella needs or wants something then it is my role to provide that for her after all i am her world, security and comfort.
- My oldest child of 4 sleep sometimes with me and sometimes with daddy just so he gets a cuddle but given a choice she would sleep with me every night as she has done so before Ella arrived
I believe that as western parents we get ourselves hung up about kids sleep to much to a point it actually creates more problems for the parents, trying to keep up with other parents that claim their kids sleep through the night since birth or because some book has told us to put them in a cot and leave them till they get it. What i am mindful is that all children are very different and that these little people that have come into this new big world and their little bodies are in a massive state of flux and change and pain and that this change and pain would screw with any normal persons sleep pattern let alone a small new person.
As a person you know when your hungry, tired, bored, in pain etc etc and your sure know how to let everyone around you know how your feeling. The point is whether this fits into a 9 -5 society lifestyle or not, and if your a working mum and your little one wants to be awake all night screaming the odds then this doesn't fit in with your life, i can only imagine how hard it must be for mothers that have to work and suffer this rather long phase of colic and teething and i guess a lot of people will look to methods that will help
I have turned the sleep thing round to my benefit this time doing thing differently and getting more me time by being in the bed with my girls and finding new activities that inspire me that i can do in bed that focuses my me time but also resolves their night needs at a superfast speed that they go back to sleep within 30 seconds or a minute, unless there is an outside factor that upsets that balance where i then need to focus my energy on the child. I think you just need to understand the massive changes little bodies have to go through. I now get a better bit of late owling as the kids snore i will work on my laptop or read or even catch up on so t.v with earphones, or even just going to bed early with the girls all snug in bed.
There seem to be two types of people in the world larks and night owls and it also seems what ever your parents seem to be that will be something you will turn out too. Myself and my husband are both night owls and we both perform better at night than in the morning, Our first daughter Sophie is also a night owl and it has become clear that Ella our second is also a night owl both girls prefer the later periods of the day and seem cheery and well performing and excel more at what they choose to do, compared to early mornings.
A bit about Ella and a little bit about Sophie
- Ella is a very happy baby and during the day loves 2 good naps and in just a hour or two or even 30 mins can provide her with enough sleep to power her up to full energy of doing all those things babies love to do.
- I am also breast feeding Ella who really loves the boobies both for a nibble and comfort. I do all night and day care of Ella who sleeps in my bed we go to bed at the same time in the evening even if i have to go to bed at 8 then thats ok sometimes she will have a bath but most of the time we have a period of quiet, cuddles and songs and i see her off to sleep i offer her a sleep at 6 but most of the time this is declined and i have learnt to watch for her signs to tell me she is ready for sleeping which is normally when dinner hits the table c'est la vie!
- Night feeds are normally 3 of them at the moment but i am becoming increasing aware that if she is ill or teething then there will be a lot more as she seeks comfort.
- When we go to bed as a threesome Sophie knows that Ella will get cuddles first as she is quicker to put to sleep and we listen to soft music, after this i roll over and cuddle Sophie who has had a time to calm down already to the calm music and soft lights and we may chat about anything and there maybe a massage before she sleeps too.
Those Offenders that ruin it all
There is a good pattern of sleep with Ella although this is not always the case, and i suspect that this might be the case for many people who see fluctuations in theirs and there offsprings sleep. There have been many nights when i have been tortured with surviving off of 2 hours sleep, this has always been down to an outside factor that has interrupted the natural sleep pattern of Ella.
Colic being the biggest offender as the gut develops wind causing a lot of pain to a new and tiny person who can not deal with it so readily and hours of screaming followed by stopping and starting of sleep, with little and no sleep for poor old mum who is on hand with medicines and massage being able to nod off just as the next bout of colic hits. Because of colic i weaned Ella at 3 months and this dramatically reduced colic and actually pretty much knocked it on the head for us this also worked for Sophie to. However Ella's gut was still developing and some nights she would get bouts of bottom wind she can still wake at 8 months at the shock of a windy bum.
Another big offender to ruin sleep is teething, teeth poking out and teeth moving about those soft jelly like gums is also very painful. Again this can go on for quite a few months stopping and starting sleep patterns as the teeth decide to make an appearance.
Another offender would be the beloved boobie just seeing boobie can turn your little lovely bundle into a grabbing, grappling sucking monster who will scream the place down if not placed next to these lovely warm orbs of milkyness.
one of the most frustrating problems is if your little one suffers from anxiety which i had with my first and her need to be with me always even at bed time and you might feel you soothed your baby off to sleep but the slightest creek of a bed spring as you leave and she is up like a jack in the box, i never found anything to solve this truly apart from time and very soft feet as you sneak out of the room
I think as a mother your first child you kind of understand why your child wont sleep but dont trust or listen to your instinct. By the time you got to your second child your probably more relaxed because you know whats coming and how it will effect the balance of the house and relationships and trust your instincts more you learn not to fight what will not be and flow with the bumps and troughs and this seems to make the whole experience with hind sight just a bit more bearable, as you know there will be light at the end of the tunnel. There is definitely light far off in that tunnel.
Because of these erratic sleep patterns caused by illness, colic or teething i have learnt to survive on 2 sessions of 1 hours sleep for day after day, I know this is not good but there is no one else that can help and when you have an older one that needs school runs and a house that needs food and a laundry pile that never ends, life does not stop. With such little sleep at the worst of times I can feel that i am at a low edge and i suffered from depression with Sophie i had absolutely no help or support and i drag my behind through a very difficult experience but from that i have learnt the signs and strive hard not to let myself get to that low wedge again as depression is a hard hole to get out of. Your mood can switch from being the absolute worst thoughts of ending it all to absolute love and happiness in the matter of a few hours depending on what is going on around you and some days it can be the hardest job in the world if the kids are acting up and the hubby is not pulling his weight although hubby is so much better this time round i think he went through his own learning curve too. Other days that lack of sleep it is completely fine to deal with, as a mother you learn to dig deep, your find energy you never knew you had, you also find energy from food so a nice slice of cake and cuppa in the afternoon is a wonderful treat, maybe a few chocolate buttons mm yes please. Some days i find myself running off of adrenaline, i get myself into my train like mode and line up lots of things to keep active to keep the pace going just to survive the day until bed time and although i may feel tired i am happy and get on with it. Occasionally on other days i say to hell with it and stay up in bed with the baby all day watching tv and cuddling and playing until school pick up and dinner times arrive, i think i should reward myself with more of these days.
My entrapment's to sleep
All of my entrapment's are no secret just common sense they are no tricks most mothers use them they are natural to use, if fact most of these also work on my husband too and there has been many times i have used them on him!! However if there are any other issues going on with baby nothing seems to help.
- Bath is good as it raises your body temperature so your snuggly for bed
- Nice clean soft warm bed the weekly bed change always see speedy sleep from little ones especially combined with a bath.
- Nice big dinner happy tummies
- Always laying, so i will lay next to or spoon my little ones, cuddles are awesome and being in the lay position makes it easier to drift off
- We have a few playlists on the ipad of really soft music we love to listen too
- I have also invented my own lullaby's that i will sing.
- Soft lights i have the mood changing schmoos from ikea in fact i have 4 of them and they all sit in the corner gently changing colour, they make it dark enough to sleep but light enough to just see each others faces.
- Go to sleep are great words so i am very clear that this time is about sleeping
- I use my words as i lay next to baby and also shut my eyes so i get a little rest but gives an example too
So here is the diary synopsis
Week 1
We are starting our sleep diary and i am so grateful that Ella loves a day sleep it really helps me out i need those times, to get my house in order and tidy up i swear my kids are wild animals i can clean a room and they in 5 mins will spread food and toys everywhere. I need my house in order for my state of mind if this goes down i can get pretty grumpy and this knocks onto to my ability to sleep as i will have endless lists of things running round and round in my head stopping me from sleeping.
Ella will wake in the morning and do the school run with me but normally falls asleep on the way home to the soporific noises of the car and continue to sleep for 1 to 2 hours onwards letting me get on with things, she will also sleep again early after just before school pick up allowing me to do more chours, Oh the chours are never ending.
Sometimes Ella falls asleep just before i want to put her down for a night sleep which can interrupt with me offering her a routine sleep of going to bed at 6 for a sleep by herself, as i said before i have learnt not to fight a child that is not tired and so if she wont sleep at 6 i offer her this sleep 1 hour later at 7 where most of the time she will take it as this feels naturally right for her and she often asks for her sleep here by indicating to me with eye rubbing and if i am eating dinner will start crying 5- 10 mins later. If she still wont take a sleep at 7 i will offer it again 1 hour on from this and stay in bed with her.
During the night this week she has woken up with wind in her bum that has awoken her and upset her to a point she wont sleep for a whole hour, which means i am also awake with her trying to comfort her, massage and get that wind out of her tummy waking to the shock of blowing raspberries out your behind was to much.
After blowing a rip roaring storm under the duvee the love of boobies being next to boobies seeing boobies means that there are many short feeds in the night to comfort reassure and to have a quick nibble on, this is ok for Ella who can drift off to sleep with a soft warm milky boobie in her mouth but for me this could mean a longer spell of being awake and trying to get off to sleep again before the next quick suckle woke me up this week has seen her waking up every hour to wind and a quick feed to go back to sleep every hour to say my eye balls hurt is an understatement. Wind has a lot to answer for as i have been awoken pretty much every single hour of the night for a whole weekend.
During the day Ella has been her chirpy happy self exploring her world and communicating to me clearly what her needs are, i too have been very happy tired sometime but happy.
Week 2
Mostly upsets have come from illness we love to swim however our local pool seems to be a breading ground or germs and every time we go swimming we come back ill, this week Poor Ella got tonsillitis but I not only got flu but tonsillitis at the same time a few days later, i know why i got ill its because i am running on vapors, due to the previous week of the attack of the windy bum keeping me awake and i haven't had a chance to catch up, so had a low immune system, oh the misery! sleep interjected with more than normal boobie feeds for comfort and reassurance because she is ill, and there was one night where Ella refused to sleep from 2 till half 4 because she was feeling so rotten and i still had to get up to get my oldest ready for school it was very tough and both Ella and i were very grumpy and short with each other and i was exhausted .
Week 3
Ella is better i still have a small touch of cold lingering around i cant shake but something has changed these past few days with Ella and i cant put my finger on it although i suspect teeth might be cause of this week of unrest and upset. Ella is refusing point blank to sleep at night no matter how long i make the bed routine, soft and calming she will not sleep at all! she is not grumpy in fact she is full of beans and happy as larry and only wants to sleep at 11 pm at night and even 12am on a couple of nights, however she has been happily but chewing and dribberling lot, i have explored her gums but no new teeth have appeared i can only think there is movement below the gums, getting ready for a big push. Also she has discovered that she can pull herself up to standing position and is feeling proud and punch and being a late owl baby she has wanted to practice this pulling up constantly, i am now wondering if it is this that might be making her so happy she doesnt not want to sleep till such a late time.
This has knocked on my sleep pattern to the late night but as Ella gets to sleep in the day i dont so i am tired. Luckily the mid week see's a change and she is back to her old self 2 good naps in the day and fast alseep at 8 with 3 boobie calls at night, this is a baby with no illness, teething or wind it sure does show a difference between a contented baby and a baby with issues upsetting her.
However this all changed again as she was suffering teething pains and giving her medicine did sort out the issues there was crying so much crying and mysery, the pain was so much that she woke every hour of the night and i got 40 mins of sleep between her waking to cry again i feel in pieces and am wondering how i will cope.
Week 4 and 5
Ella feeds on solids and milk in the day and gets enough food and even with meat in her tummy she still will wake and grabs at boobie she has always been a hungry baby. She is fully better and i am better and she has been sleeping at a good time so i have managed to relax in bed of an evening and watch a few t.v shows finally getting some me time and also to be able to spend some time with hubby to. It has been great im feeling full of energy and have got lots done and feel happier for it, with out interruptions to Ella from teeth or wind we are both sleeping and getting on with things in life, until the next bout of what ever being a baby brings to our small world.
Week 6
All change teething has kicked in again still no teeth have popped up i have to add just the pain and every night for 4 nights Ella has woken every hour screaming again the medicine is only half working calpol, grannuls and ibuprofen cocktails 2 hours later happy again and off to sleep but only for a 2 hour period and she wakes again and there after every hour, im feeling dirty to the core of my body and cant wait to see this blooming tooth when it finally makes its appearance.
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