sleep progress

So I been taking my own advice and trying to get Sumayah to fall asleep on her own in the day. So far it works for the morning nap, but the late afternoon nap, when i am most busy is when she puts up a fight. Everytime she cries I pick her up to console her then put her down again, she sleeps about 5 mins in total then she cries again. But i look at the positive side, i'm getting lots of exercise walking up and down the stairs every 5 minutes! I do feel bad though that poor Bilaal has to entertain himself while I juggle cooking and sleep training in the afternoons. The good news is that her for 2 nights in a row now, she has fallen asleep by herself at the night sleep (about 10pm) and has now stretched her sleep to 3.30am. if she keeps this up, hopefully by the end of the week she will be going at least till 4.30am, that's my target for now. When she starts having more solids in the day I will target a later wake time, but she is after all only 3 months old!Speaking of the feeding issue, I'm thinking I'm gonna start her on veggies next week. Apparently sweet potatoe are the least allergenic followed by the squash family, so that's what I'll start with.

The big Eat 'n Sleep debate

Different people have different approaches to the whole sleep issue. With Bilaal I certainly had many a sleepless night until I sleep trained him at age 2. But reflecting back I think I could have achieved this earlier. But that raises the question when is the right age. I know the Baby Sense Franchise encourages it from early on already with their whole "put them down drowsy, but awake" concept. Problem with that is, it didn't work with Bilaal, nor with Sumayah, I tried it from the beginning and once again have a kid that needs to be 'put' to sleep. So I have this one friend who is lucky enough to have a 9 month old she can put wide a awake in her cot and leave the room for the little angel girl to fall asleep all on her own. She informs me that with the first one she wasn't so lucky and was desperate so she sleep trained him with controlled crying. So she did the same with her daughter from birth and hey presto! no sleep problems. Of course the other difference is that she has the cot in another room, I forgot to ask her if this was from the beginning, because I find I don't like to leave Sumayah to cry in the room when I know Yaasier has to go to work the next day. I would be easier if she was in another room, even though that would take away the convenience of having her within arms reach! So perhaps the alternative is to try getting her to sleep on her own in the day and evening?

For the past few nights Sumayah had been waking at about 1 am, then 2 am and finally last night 3 am, so it has been progressively improving. Everytime she wakes I pick her up and put her back to sleep. My aim is to try to get her to sleep till 5am from a 10pm bedtime. Granted she slept most of last night in my arms and I had a rather broken sleep, but I refused to feed her before 5am as she should be going for 8 to 10 hours without a feed at night (according to Baby Sense).

Let's see what happens over the next few nights!

Yum Yum

So the cereal eating is going well in the sense that Sumayah is enjoying it lots, but it hasn't really made much difference to her sleeping. She still wakes at about 2am for a feed??! I don't know if it's just habit or what. This morning I started giving the cereal in the morning too, because for the past 2 mornings she's been hungry between feeding times in the mornings. So we shall see how it goes tonight.

Our adventure with Food begins

Last week Thursday, on the advice of the nurse at the clinic, I started giving Sumayah cereal in the evening. I was so relieved she took to it very well. But at the same time, i wasn't really surprised. I know lots of people struggle with feeding so I feel very blessed that Bilaal never had an eating issue and hopefully it doesn't seem Sumayah will either. I think I just have greedy children... not surprising when they have a mother who loves to chow down! I was both excited and nervous to start solids - excited because it's such a new milestone in our relationship, but nervous because it means we are embarking on a whole new adventure that ultimately means more time, new problems, and the biggest one... it means my baby's growing so fast! Next thing you know she's gonna be crawling around the house scratching out all manner of things!

My brave Girl!

So the injections went well again just like the last time. just before, Sumayah was all smiles with the nurse and she kept saying, "Aah I don't like it went they all smily with me..." and i keot thinking, "so she doesn't feel bad stabbing a grumpy baby?" But back to Sumayah, she cried when that ever so long needle pierced her thighs but as soon as I picked her up she stopped and guess what? She actually started smiling again! She is such a brave little soul. The nurse warned me that the second injection is usually worse than the first as she will be more unsettled this time, but it actually wasn't too bad. She did need a little extra love and attention, but overall i think the Panado did a good job settling her! Now she has to go again next month! I don't remember going so often with Bilaal, but I guess the schedule has changed somewhat and now there's still the new measles vaccine at 9 months too.

I sommer got to ask the nurse about introducing solids, because S has been more unsettled at night lately, not sleeping as well as before. She said I could start the cereal no problem. On the one hand I am so excited to start this new milestone, but on the other hand introducing solids means alot of extra feeding to add to the schedule. it's wierd it's like you want them to grow and develop, but at the same time you really just want to keep them so cute and cuddly for as long as you can, cos you blink your eye and you find yourself applying for grade R already... but that's a topic for another blog entry all on its own!