Monster spray

Princess has stopped sleeping well at night. She says she is scared of monsters. At the moment she is waking up scared around twice a night, on top of the several times a night that Grapie is up, so basically I will give anything a go to get a better night's sleep.

I came across the idea of monster spray on Pintrest, the idea is that Princess will spray her room before bed to prevent any monsters getting in. I'm slightly torn on this idea as part of me feels that this might be agreeing with her that monsters actually do exist. But on the other hand telling her that monsters aren't real isn't working, so if this gives her the confidence to feel comfortable at night then, in the words of Postman Pat, mission accomplished!

It was really simple to make. I used an empty spray bottle, filled it with water, and added a tiny drop of pink food colouring to make it slightly pink tinted. I also added about 10 drops of lavender essential oil, in the hope that it might also be relaxing. A good shake and it was ready.

I found a fantastic printable label over at Easypeasygrandma, she has also made some really cute bedtime monsters. Once that was stuck on, I put it in a box and told Princess that the postman had delivered it!

She carefully sprayed her room before bed tonight, we did the door, window and the ceiling (apparently this is were the monsters are!) So hopefully this will keep the monsters away tonight.

Word of the week, One-off

My word of the week this week is:

One-off

Something exciting, amazing and long overdue happened in our house this week.

Grapie SLEPT ALL NIGHT!!!!!!!

Now, I wish my word could be more positive, something like "finally", "amazing" or "breakthrough". But even though she is nearly 18months now, this has never happened before, and it's not looking likely be the start of a new pattern, based on the past few night. Unfortunately.

Oh well. It was good while it lasted!

A bad night shows me how far we have come

Last night was a bad night for Grapie. She is getting 3 teeth and she tossed and turned all night, waking up and crying what felt like every 10 minutes. Not even Calpol gave her much relief. This took me back to a time when every night was like this for her, when she was suffering badly with reflux. And I realised this morning just how far we have come.

Don't get me wrong, its far from perfect. She still wakes several times a night and I still spend half the night in her bed with her. But she sleeps in her own little bed in her own room, she falls asleep without any help apart from me being in her room and she has stopped breastfeeding.

We still have a long way to go before she is sleeping all night but we have come a long way.

Light at the end of the tunnel? A plan for sleep

Last week I wrote about how it was time to think about a plan to get sone more sleep for my while family. Grapie has been teething all week but the time has no come to introduce some changes. I am using Elizabeth Patently's book, The no cry sleep solution as a guide. This is what i will be trying:-

• Introduce a lovey- I tried doing this when I first got the book, we took her to a toy shop and got her to choose a cuddly toy, the one she was most attrated to. She chose a duck and is becoming more and more attatched to it but not to the point where it comforts her a night yet.

• Introduce a song as a sleep association- we already have this, I sing her twinkle star

• Bedtime routine- we alreadt have a bedtime routine of bath, milk bed but I am starting to tweak it a bit to make sure that it works for Grapie as well as Princess. I have introduced a little baby massage with some lavender lotion, and a story in her room.

• Change the sleeping environment- at the moment Grapie has her milk and falls asleep on my bed, then I put her in her cot when she is asleep. After that she comes into bed with me when she wakes up and often doesn't go back to her cot. But today we have made a big change. We have taken down her cot and she will be sleeping on her matress.  We have got a special bed guard for the side and a gate for her door to prevent night wandering. And tonight she had her milk and fell asleep in her own bed. The plan is that she will gradually spend nore and more time in her bed and eventually get used to sleeping on her own.

So, according to the book, we should carry out the changes for 10 days then do another sleep log to she if there has been an improvement. So I will report back in 10 days with my results. In the meantime, wish me luck!

#BEDN

Time to make a plan to get more sleep

So, I have been moaning a lot recently about Grapie's sleep issues and how tired I am. We saw a paediatricion last week and I had been pinning my hopes on an anwer to why she is so uncomfortable at night and a solution. But we didn't get one, we were told it's just something that she will have to grow out of. I have been feeling very down about the whole thing recently, but today I have decided that I need to try to come up with a solution to help our family get through this, rather than fall apart.

• Get rid of the cot

The first change we are going to make is a practical one, replacing her cot with a single matress on the floor with baby bumpers. Although it is pretty drastic, there are two potential benefits to this. Grapie currently starts the night in her cot but most nights has joined us in bed by 10. We fell into cosleeping a few months ago when I got so tired that I started falling asleep at night while breastfeeding. I realised that I was actually getting more sleep that way and for a while it was working better than staying awake to put her back in her cot only for her to wake up an hour later and go through the whole thing again. But she is a fidgety baby and likes to sleep sideways in the bed meaning that on top of her repeated wakings, we are often awake and uncomfortable even when she is asleep! This plan would give us a spare bed to move to for one of us to get a few hours uninterrupted sleep.

Also I'm hoping that it will be the start of getting her back to sleeping on her own, as I will be able to go to her bed to feed her back to sleep some times. But the main aim will be to get more sleep in the short term so I will have more energy to make more chanfes in the future.

• No cry sleep solution

I used this book by Elizabeth Pantely when Princess was younger, it was how I managed to fet her to start falling asleep by herself. I have read through it before, but the time has come to use it properly for Grapie. The first thing the book recommends is creating a nap and sleep log to get an acturate picture of her sleep patterns. Here is the one I did for G before we saw the paediatricion.

Monday
Naps - morning, fell asleep in car for 5 minutes, woke up crying
Afternoon, fell asleep in car, then carseat put on pram, asleep for 45minutes

Nightime
Breastfed to sleep, woke up when moved to cot so repeated breastfeed to sleep, put in cot by 8pm
10.15- woke up crying, came into bed, fed to sleep
12.45- woke up, tried to settle without milk but woke up fully, attempted to feed to sleep 3 times, awake until 2.30
5.00- woke up, fed back to sleep
7.15 up for day

Tuesday
Naps fell asleep in pram, asleep for approx 1  hour

Nightime
Breastfed to sleep woke up when moved to cot so fed to sleep again, in cot bu 8pm
9pm woke up crying, fed to sleep, put back in cot
11.20 woke up crying came in bed and fed to sleep
1.00 woke up screaming, gave calpol and walked her around to sleep, back in cot at 1.30
4.20 woke up crying, came in bed for milk
5.30 writhing round in pain, daddy cuddled back to sleep
6.15 woke up crying, had milk but then up for day

Wednesday
Naps, morning fell asleep on bed after milk, asleep for 1hour 20minutes
Afternoon, fell asleep in pram, asleep for 30minutes

Nightime
Breastfed to sleep, in cot by 7.44
9.50awake, came to bed for milk
12.30 woke up crying, fed to sleep in bed
1.50 writhing round in pain every 10-30 minutes for the rest of the night
6.00 up for day

So as you can see, we do not get a good night's sleep at all and bear in mind that G is now 13 and a half months.

Grapie is teething at the moment so we will have to wait for that to pass before we implement any changes. But the next stage is to come up with a plan. So watch this space for the next stage and to see how we get on.

Any helpful comments are welcomed

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Regrets, I've had a few

Last night I did something I regret. I knew as I was doing it that I would regret it. But I didn't stop myself, I did it anyway. It was something I had promised myself I would never do and I was so upset I did it anyway........

I put Grapie in her cot crying and walked out of the room. This is something that may not seem like a big deal to some mums, but it's I feel quite strongly about not doing. when Princess was a baby, I let myself feel pressured into trying controlled crying, just the once, and it's my biggest regret from her childhood. I understand that it works for some children, but I firmly believe that there are some children, the more strong willed children, that it is not suitable for and my girls fall into that category. It did so much damage to Princess and her sleep problems, it made her afraid of her cot, and she is still afraid of being on her own in bed.

So I promised myself that I would never put a child of mine through that again. And now I have. Now I know I wasn't attempting to try controlled crying again, and she was actually only in her cot for a minute as my partner knows how I feel about leaving her to cry, so went straight in to her, while I sobbed on the sofa, already regretting it. But I still feel terrible, like I've let her down. But she just doesn't sleep and wants to be held all the time, and I just reached breaking point and just needd to put her down. She won't be held by anyone but me, she screams the place down if daddy even tries to take her off me, and only ever sleeps for 2 hours at a time. Which usually I just dig deep and cope with, but not last night.

And today I feel terrible, like a monster mummy. But I'm probably feeling more guilt than necessary really, she still slept in my bed cufdled up withe last night in the end so she probably doesn't blame me too much.

when will I get some sleep?

Regular readers of my blog may have noticed that there is a sleep deprived theme to some of my posts, mainly as Grapie is the worlds worst sleeper! She was diagnosed with silent reflux when she was around 4 months old, and at 13 months has never even come close to what anyone in their right mind would consider a good nights sleep.

She writhes around in her sleep in discomfort, wakes up screaming and never stays asleep for more than a 2 hour stretch. To say we are sleep deprived is an understatement.

So yesterday, after many visits to my gp, we finally went for an appointment with a paediatrician and part of me went with high hopes of a miracle solution.

But after a good examination the doctor told us that she couldn't find anything wrong with her. Now obviously this is great news that my baby doesn't have a serious illness and doesn't need to have tests, which I was really quite worried about. But where does it leave us?

She is clearly uncomfortable at night time but with the doctor saying that its just something she will have to grow out of where do we go from here and how will we get through many more months with such little sleep?

If anyone can help in any way or has been through this and survived please let me know, thanks

Sleep- Why are we so quick to judge?

Neither of my children are what you would call good sleepers. Princess is 3.5 and still only sleeps through about half the time and is an early riser. And Grapie, well, there are no words to describe what a bad sleeper she is. But she had silent reflux, which still seems to be causing her problems.

But I have had to stop talking to people about Grapie's sleep or lack of it as the reactions it gets are driving me mad. And as I am extremely sleep deprived I do not have much patience left.

There is the knowing, judgemental look I get from. other mums that says, 'you must be doing it all wrong, my child sleeps fine, so I did it right'. Grrrrrr!

Then there are those who are not so subtle and dont just stick to a judgemental look but proceed to tell me that it is all my fault cos I don't just let her cry it out. (My mother in law is in this category). Without getting into a rant about controlled crying, she has a medical condition, she is in pain when she wakes, would anyone really just leave her to cry? Really? Well you might change your mind if you saw her at night, writhing around in pain. And if you would, well its my turn to judge you.

Then there are well meaning friends, who sympathetically reply (usually after the judgemental look, albeit fleeting) 'I don't know how you can function, I'm terrible without sleep'. Ok, so it's meant as a compliment, but really, what else could I do? Refuse to do anything for my children, lie in a heap on the floor watching daytime tv and say "sorry kids, no breakfast today, mummy's too tired".

If I'm honest there are days that we don't leave the house cos I'm to scared of crashing the car, and lots of days I'm too tired to string an intelligent sentance together. But on the days we do make an effort to meet friends, I am making a massive effort to simultaneously a/ not fall asleep while I listen to you, b/ think of a reply more interesting than I'm sooo tired', c/ make sure my kids don't come to too much harm while I'm holding a conversation and d/ remember I've got kids.

So please, next time you speak to someone who is having sleep troubles with their little ones, try not to judge them, or the choices they make, and definitely don't brag about how well your baby sleeps as they will be trying really hard to hold it together, and are doing really well to be out in public.  And they may well just cry.