Sleep....hmmm. Not since I was 5 months pregnant with Sophia. I can't remember the last time I slept solidly through the night. I think I've just gotten used to it now. On the rare occasion that Sophia sleeps through the whole night, I wake up with fright and I have to go and check her!
Even from newborn, Sophia didn't sleep like other babies seemed to. Naturally, routine has had it benefits but only as she got a bit older. When she was a wee baby, there was only one way to get her to sleep and that was to let her go to sleep on the boob. That's it. The number of people that said not to do that...well....getting up to a baby every 20 minutes....you get to the point that if you can find something that works - you'll use it and I was never going to make the supermum ranks anyway. We would have some nights where she would finally go to sleep just after 10pm. If she was asleep at 7 or 8, she'd be awake at 11pm and not settled again till just past 1am. And we had a better chance of getting her to sleep and staying asleep if she was asleep in my arms. Even though I was in the habit of getting things done around her while she slept during the day (even vacuuming), she could wake at the drop of a hat during the night. That has only changed since she was about 3 and a half. Even so, she will still wake in the night and crawl into our bed anywhere between 3 and 5am.
When she stopped asking for milk at bedtime, around 18 months (she pretty much stopped with all naps after then too), we gave her a bedtime supper instead and incorporated stories. She has alway loved books so its been easy to set up a routine involving stories. Every now and then we have to adjust the routine because it simply stops working.
At the moment she goes to bed at 7pm and is up and down like an energizer bunny till around 8.30. These days we're able to blackmail her into only getting up if she really needs something - she gets and extra story the next night if she stays in bed. Now and then, when she's having a wee growth spurt...she's up at around 4am - wide awake and ready to go with a hungry body and a hungry mind.
'Send her back to bed!' I hear you cry? Yeeeeees.....try that - go back to sleep and in about 10 mins you'll hear, 'Mamma, Mamma - I've got bacteria in my body!'. So you mumble something like, 'yes honey but you need it - some bacteria is good bacteria, go back to sleep'. And just as you sink deeply into sleep again you'll hear (in about 10 mins), ''Mamma, Mamma - I've got broken bones and scabs!' (which of course she doesn't) and this will go on until you lose your marbles and raise your voice, 'Enough! Go back to bed!'. And then after much sniffling, you will hear something like, 'But Mamma, what about my broken bones?' and, 'Mamma, I neeeed you!' and lately its....'But Mamma, I'm starving hungry!' By now...you are fully awake and thoroughly annoyed at 5 in the morning.
So....these days I just get up. I get her something to eat and drink. I put the educational TV program on that she's got firmly fixed in her mind which can be anything from DirtGirl or Magic School Bus to a doco on the human body, or the pyramids (she only gets rubbish if she's sick lol). I make sure she's got what she needs and then I tuck myself up on the other sofa and go back to sleep. This way - we both get what we want.
No comments:
Post a Comment