Uh oh, my baby appears to have a brain

If you'd told me a couple of weeks ago that Little Red's got a brain on him and knows how to get what he wants, when he wants I would've said "Pish!" and told you to get your head checked. If you told me that now though, I would solemnly nod my head in agreement and say "Why yes, you're right on the money with that one, dear."

How did I come to this conclusion, you ask? I credit it to a cold, hard slap in the face with the realisation that my sweet little angel is growing up and therefore, getting ready to push them boundaries further and further. And further.

So a week before Chrimbo, the wee man starting sprouting some teeth. He was a tad grumpy, a tad clingy and (more than) a tad sleepless. Our amazing nighttime sleepasaurus now saw fit to wake up at 9pm-ish as well as 2am for a feed. OK, I thought, it's alright, he's just sore and grouchy and soon enough he'll back to his old sleepy time habits and we'll all get a decent night's kip again. Nope. We got through the festivities and went on holiday where things began to get worse. Sleeping in a small bach with three other people, one doesn't feel inclined to let their baby "cry it out" so for the sanity of the household I cuddled and fed Redford whenever he woke. Sometimes he woke once, other times he woke three or four times.

Our first two nights back home, however, were fine. Little Red had me tricked into thinking he was back into the swing of big boy sleeping - with tricked being the operative word here, every night for the past two weeks he's been waking anytime between 9 and 11pm (sometimes more than once) and then at 2am as well as any amount of times between 3 and 7am. I try leaving him but he just screams to the point where I'm pretty sure I'm slowly losing hearing in one ear even though his room is across the hall.

Then the night before last I had an epiphany. Little Red was crying in his cot so, realising he wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon, I picked him up and he stopped. I put him back in and he started again. Then I got him out once more and.... silence. I gave him a wee feed thinking perhaps he needed a top up. He didn't. He just lay there in my arms cooing away and grinning like the cat that got the cream. The little (ahem) rascal. And me! What had I done?! All that hard work getting him to settle himself and I'd gone and erased it all in one foul swoop.

So after about four hours of sleep last night I decided this morning that I would keep a close eye on this behaviour to see how it evolved. Apparently I've been wandering around with a cheeky-baby shaped veil over my eyes for the past few weeks because as soon as I started to really take note of what was going on I saw Redford's little brain ticking over in the cold, harsh light of day. The boy's been taking me for one hell of a ride and I've been lolling about in the "he's-too-little-to-know-what-he's-doing" cart picking my bloody fingernails.

Another example of the tot's wily ways is mealtimes. The boy's hungry but thinks it's funny to clamp his mouth shut when the spoon hits those lips. He also has loads of fun knocking his sippy cup or throwing his crackers on the floor and then leaning right out of his highchair to stare at them until you pick them up (upon which he repeats said cracker throwing). And, in the last couple days, he's grown ever so partial to throwing the odd tantrum in his highchair (complete with swinging fists and bouncing bottom) when he'd rather be playing. All of this, of course, had gone straight over my head until today when I realised exactly what he was up to and decided two could play at that game but there would be only one winner (me). He clamps his mouth shut, I daub a bit of food on the tray to distract him and ta da! The gob magically opens up. He throws his crackers off, I pick them up, say "all gone" and put them on the table for him to see that they're not coming back. Needless to say, he soon gets bored of that game. And my answer to his I'd-rather-be-wreaking-havoc-elsewhere tantrums? I simply ignored him. I sat there with my head turned the other way until he got bored and started twiddling his thumbs.

Ha! I win! Having said that though, I have yet to see how tonight's sleep will go. Nick and I will be going back to the controlled crying technique from now on to (fingers crossed) battle those late night whinge marathons. As we speak, I am steeling myself for a night of snatched shut eyes in between screams. Sheesh. Watch this space - hopefully I'll survive the night with my hearing and my sanity in tact!  

PS. We attacked the midnight tantrums with gusto last night - Little Red woke up at 10pm crying, I knew he couldn't be hungry and it was nice and toasty in his room so we stealthily enforced the controlled crying again and it worked.... eventually. An hour later of me popping my head round the door every 5, 10 then 15 minutes and saying "Night, night sweetheart. I love you" he was asleep and didn't wake again til 4am! Yippee! I did feed him at 4 though and he was hungry but perhaps in a few weeks we'll tackle the 4am wake-ups. Baby steps, baby steps.

Follow-follow up: Since above PS Redford has been sleeping 6pm-4am and then after a wee feed he's back in the land of nod until 8am! Awesomeness.

Let's all hold hands and cry it out

Not in a schmultzy group therapy kind of way but a "my baby doesn't know how to settle himself to sleep so I'm going to let him cry it out" kind of way. And yes, there were tears. Plenty of them. From Little Red. But mostly from me ( no, not really but I don't want to sound like an ice queen - I simply managed to dissociate myself from the sound).

Baby Daddy Nick and I were pretty over the fact that a) the wee peanut's cot was literally attached to our bed and b) we were still getting up (rolling over?) every 1-2 hours to either feed him or put the dummy back in. No rest for the wicked and all that but come on!! I was turning less into a normal, functioning human being and more into a mean devil zombie with each passing day. So! I figured it was time for some evasive action. I sat down with the lappy and did some serious swotting on sleep. Why I didn't think to do this sooner is beyond me but better late than never, right?

I made the executive decision to go with the "verbal reassurance" technique - pretty much the beginner's guide to "cry it out"/Ferber method - and go with it we did! I took the reins and insisted Nick sleep in the spare room and cook dinner so I could go full bore in tackling Little Red's night-time shenanigans (why is it when babies are concerned we women always seem to be made of steel and nails whereas men turn to custard and cuddles as soon as a tear is shed? I suppose us ladies are the alpha, after all). 

When I first had Redford I swore I would never result to this technique as I thought it was beyond cruel to let your poor defenseless bundle cry themselves to sleep. But now, when I weigh up my sanity with his tears for a night or two, my sanity wins out big time. So I thought I'd document the whole thing for y'all....

First though, a bit of background:

Little Red has always been a totally crap day sleeper but from 5 weeks started sleeping 7-8 hours a night. He even settled himself! Admittedly, he spent a lot of time in bed with us but who cares? I'd rather have solid sleep than the bed to myself. Then, wham! We hit five months and he started waking at 3am. Then he started to wake at 12am and 3am. Then it turned into bed at 9pm, dummy run at 10pm, comfort feed at 12am, dummy run at 1am, real feed at 2am, comfort feed at 4am, real feed at 5.30am and so on and so forth and you get the picture. He'd gone from self-sufficient wee man to clingy comfort feeder in the space of a week. I was not a happy chappy and neither was he. So in comes Ferber, we go sans dummy (cold turkey, I tell ya, it's the only way to go) and this is how it went....

NIGHT ONE:   Little Red has his bedtime bottle at 7pm and after 5 minutes of sitting and burping we sing our bedtime song (Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen but sung in the style of Jeff Buckley) on the way to the bedroom. We turn on the white noise (a rather serene mountain lake but I reckon it's actually a stream) and bubs goes down with Denver, Patrick and Sophie around 7.30pm.

This is Denver the dinosaur. He appears to have eaten a disco ball - his

tummy is reminiscent of Studio 54 come night-time.

This is Patrick. He's the firm favourite. The BFF, even. Fire and brimstone

shall rain down should you forget Patrick. 

 This is Sophie. She's French and rather exotic and has a good ol' squeak

when chewed on.Yay for squeaky things.

Anyway, where were we? Ah, yes. So Little Red is in the cot! Awake! I left the room and the crying began. Five minutes and I went in to verbally reassure him. Again ten minutes later and then fifteen minutes. Et voila! About half an hour after going down he was fast asleep and we didn't hear a peep (a very rare happening) until 2.10am. I was a little unsure what to do so figured I'd let him cry - I thought perhaps he'd go back to sleep - but after 45 minutes it was clear that he most definitely wasn't so I got up, fed him (he guzzled!) then put him back to bed awake. He then slept through to 5.30am so I bought him into bed with me and we snoozed until 9am. Bliss!

NIGHT TWO:   It was easier on the second night as we knew what to expect. The routine went as per usual (although we were still getting into the swing of a set time for bed) and Little Red was in his cot by 8pm. This time there was only 15 minutes of crying! He woke at 1.50am so I fed him and then he went back down until 5.20am. I fed him again and then tried to put him back in the cot but he wasn't having a bucket of it so up we got - a slight shock to the system being up that early, but hey, I ain't complaining!

NIGHT THREE:   We've now moved down to a 10 minute settle time, yay for progress! Down at 7.40pm with a wake time of 12am. I have to admit I felt a bit nervous with the midnight wake, it seemed he was back to his old tricks so I thought I'd wait a bit and see what happened and you know what? He cried for 10 minutes and then sozzled himself back to sleep not to wake until 5.30am - superb!

NIGHT FOUR:   Naughty Mummy forgot about Little Red's arvo nap so he was absolutely knackered by 7pm. He gulped down his bottle, was in bed by 7.15pm and asleep in less than a minute. He woke at 2.50am for a feed and then slept through til 6.45am. I'm really liking where this is headed....

So it's Night Seven tonight and goodness me have we come a long way from those disturbed nights. We've been doing a breast feed at 4.30pm, dinner at 5pm and then Redford's ready for his bottle by 7pm. He's still crying when we put him down but it's usually only for 5 or so minutes. Midnight feeds usually happen between 2am and 3am (after which I make sure he's still awake when I put him back down) and he's now sleeping til 6.30/7am.

It's utterly amazing how well this has worked. I was terrified upon starting that it just wouldn't stick, that I'd end up with a baby that never slept and a body and brain that was slowly idling down a path of insanity. All three of us are happier and healthier - Nick is refreshed when he leaves for work as he's not suffering broken sleep - even if he does manage to snooze on through most of it, I'm getting two solid blocks of dream time thus having so much energy during the day I resemble the Energizer bunny and Little Red is chilled out and just.... awesome! 

I'm pretty chuffed. We're all pretty chuffed. Long live happy, sleeping family times! 

PS. This technique isn't for every baby, but if you think you and your little tot can handle it - I highly recommend it. A few nights of yucky crying is well worth the results!

Does the 6 month miracle really exist?

I'm not sure it does in our household. For those of you scratching your noggins wondering what the devil I'm on about, I'm talking about that "magical" moment when your wee one turns 6 months and all of a sudden things fall into place. He's sleeping through the night, feeding like clockwork, hoeing down on his solids and has two naps a day at exactly the same time for exactly 2 hours. Know what I'm getting at? Perhaps I've been reading the wrong baby books or perhaps I just expect too much but for the past few weeks, I feel as if I've been living with a newborn again.

Now our little guy is like any other 6 month old. He loves the simple things in life, like his jolly jumper....

 

and his spoon....

the sand between his toes....

and drinking out of cups that aren't his.

But just because he likes simple things doesn't mean he's a simple baby. Not in the slightest. He's never been a great day sleeper but for a while there he was easy and adaptable - he slept in his cot (in his own room, even!) for a good 7 hours a night, he chowed down on his solids and he was just, well, easy. But now, yeesh! This kid is giving me a run for my money. Or should I say a flat out sprint and here I am panting away, barely keeping up a jog. 

Now I'm not saying my Little Red is the devil's spawn - he's pretty freaking awesome most of the time - but give a Mum a break. For the past four weeks I'm pretty sure I've averaged 5 hours of sleep a night (and that's not consecutive) except for two nights last week when he tricked me into thinking he was back to his superb slumbering ways and I got five in a row - magic! So the night sleeping has shot out the door and following hot in it's footsteps is the daytime sleeping. I'm getting three twenty-thirty minute naps out of him a day. A day. There's a couple of Mums in my coffee group that have bubs that sleep four-ish hours during the day and then eleven straight hours at night! Oh how do I envy thee? Let me count the ways....

I've heard about the whole sleep promotes sleep idea and I definitely agree with it (a fellow Mum sent me a sleep quiz which I plan to thoroughly devour) - those two nights he slept straight through, he'd hunkered down with me and had a big two hour nap in the afternoon. And I know an early bedtime helps the cause too but really, these two things are a lot easier said than done. How do I get Little Red to nap longer than half an hour at a time? And how do I get him down to bed earlier to settle himself (he used to but now we have to rock him in our arms to sleep) without World War IV breaking out? I've tried almost every trick in the book, but obviously there's something I'm missing. Perhaps it's the non-solids eating (he was doing it and doing it good but now nothing, nadda, none.) The solids make a full belly which makes a sleepy baby which makes more sleep which means I get a happy, well rested baby instead of a needy, cranky baby, right? I just don't know.

So I'm sitting here wondering where the 6 month miracle is that I've heard so much about. Maybe I got my hopes up, maybe my expectations are too high, or maybe it's a false miracle. A mirage, a myth, a daydream that we Mums grasp onto when things are a bit crap. I know things will get better eventually, that this is probably just a phase, and I know I'm definitely not alone (I know other mamas going through exactly the same thing right now) and heavens that makes me feel better. But at 3am in the morning when it's dark and cold and I'm half asleep and the world feels like it's going to cave in, I wish on the nearest star for a little more sleepy feedy baby and a little less wakey cranky baby.