Because i can!

This morning Today I was allowed myself to be lazy. My little insomniac has been up to her old sleepless habits again this week, tossing and turning and moaning in her sleep, which meant I didn't get much sleep either. Thankfully being the end of the year, work has slowed down considerably, but to be honest I am still recovering from October when everything was at its peak. The students marks needed to be in, last meetings of the year, half term, and the biggest one of all... moving. So ending this week with little sleep has really tired me out. So this morning, after another night of a whole 2 hours sleep, after Yaasier and Bilaal had left I decided that I would play with Sumayah a little till she was tired, get her to sleep and crawl back into bed right next to her, and that's exactly what I did! We fell asleep at about 9am and when I woke again it was 11am... Sumayah slept till about 11.30am, just enough time for me to have a long hot shower... heavenly! By the time we tidied up and went downstairs it was time for Sumayah's lunch and then off the fetch Bilaal at school. I didn't bother with the morning dishes or doing any laundry (thank goodness as it ended up raining heavily) and all I took out of the freezer for supper is viennas. So tonight its oven chips and viennas for supper and I will see how I feel about giving the kids a bath! Because sometimes mommies deserve to be lazy and care-free and simply not give a damn ;)

Sleep Saga Chronicles continued

Things seem to be improving a weeee bit. On Sunday we had a lovely picnic at the park for a friend's birthday. The last good sleep Sumayah had was 10am the morning for about an hour (pleasant surprise!) and after that she had about a 15 minute nap at about 2.30pm and no matter how hard I tried she simply would not have her late afternoon nap. So one would think with the lack of sleep and all the fun excitement of the beautiful outdoors that she would have no problem sleeping when night fell... well you thought wrong. We didn't have the grace period of the witching hour. Madam decided to wake from 9pm onward for every hour and then from 10.30pm itt was just impossible to even get her to fall into a light sleep. I would be walking up and down in the dark with her for an hour and she would be staring up at me with big bright eyes. Not even drowsy or droopy! Now I know the Baby Sense will tell you that an overtired, overstimulated child becomes hyperactive and unable to settle into a restful sleep... but come on... 4 hours later surely she should at least be showing signs of sleepiness after being rocked and bobbed and patted and swayed?! Only at about 3.30am did she decide that she was now tired and just dozed off... in the bed of course.

So yesterday I bought some rescue remedy thinking that maybe she just has a very restless mind and needs something to calm her at night. That is something other that the whole Baby Sense precribed 'setting the stage for sleep' routine I have been following to no avail. So last night still presented some sleep problems but not as bad. She woke a few times before midnight again, but was definately sleepy enough to pat her to sleep in her cot. Finally she had a good stretch of sleep from 10pm till the midnight witching hour. I picked her up and patted her to sleep on my chest in our bed, but then put her back in the cot and what do you know she actually slept through till 5.45am! Now I don't know if it was the rescue remedy that did the trick or something else I may have done differently last night, but I sure am going to use the homeopathy again tonight! 

The Witching hour returns!

This is going to be a very watered down version of the post I was actually writing in my head at 2am this morning. But after a hot cup of tea and lovely french toast I have calmed down somewhat and am therefore typing with less anger and frustration. So what is the object of my frustrations.... Sleep of course... or rather lack of it! After the success of my sleep training at the start of the year, I was pretty impressed with myself for 'dealing' with the hot topic on every mother's lips... getting baby to sleep through the night. Of course I knew that teething would cause some unsettled nights, but I didn't expect it to toatally undo all the sleep training I put us through! For the past 3 months itt has been getting progressively worse. From waking every 3 hours only needing the dummy  to sleep again, to waking every hour from midnight onward - hence the tittle of this post. Like clockwork, on midnight the restless sleep kicks in. Most nights its simply: she cries, I put the dummy in her mouth, I get back into bed, repeat. Most nights it's pretty automatic, literally following the process in my sleep. But every few nights I have one like last night.

Where she just  can't fall back to sleep, not wide awake, clearly wanting to sleep, but just not able to cross that bridge over into deep sleep. Worst still she doesn't want me to pick her up, she is very happy with me leaning over the side of the cot with my hand on her back. Her eyes would be closed, she seems to be sleeping I've been standing like this for 15 minutes already so I think maybe I can creep back into bed... oh no! The minute I  move my hand from her back she opens her eyes to peer at me throught the darkness. The minute I put my hand back she closes her eyes again. When it gets to 2am, I'm cold, my back is sore, I'm getting pins and needles in my arm from hanging over the cot, I'm tired and when I remove my hand from her back and she looks at me and claps her hands... yes claps! that is truly the last straw I tell you. This is when I use all a manner of obscenities under my breath, feel like shouting at Sumayah, feel  like crying with tiredness and frustration, feel like putting earplugs in and dumping her in the cot to cry it out....

Deep breaths...5,4,3,2,1... lift her gently from her cot and bring her to the bed at the risk that she will now be wide awake and want to play (it's happened before!). Surprisingly she lies quietly between Yaasier and I tossing and turning a little bit until hey presto! she is asleep. Still only lightly, so still needing the occasional pat on the back, but at least I am snug as a bug under the covers so I finally get a little shuteye!

Insomnia!

I think Sumayah has insomnia. Last night at about 2.30am she woke up and just couldn't fall back to sleep. We tried rocking, walking, shushing, singing, reciting prayers, sitting, lying, leaving her to cry... but the little bugger just wouldn't drop off. The eyes kept drooping and rolling and she seemed quite settled and content on the arm, but she just couldn't cross the bridge into that blissful state of deep sleep. On top of that Bilaal had a slight tummy bug... again! and since he is not yet proficient at cleaning his own poepgatjie, every hour he would come into the room announcing that he was going to make a number 2 so that I would know to be on bum cleaning alert! I think I only got some shut-eye at about 5am?! Madame eventually fell asleep in our bed with alot of tossing and turning in her sleep, yet she still managed to wake up at 6.30am ready for breakfast. Now given her lack of nightly slumber one would assume that her usual morning nap would happen easily, but Nay! The little insomniac managed to skip her nap all together until she evetually just dropped off at about 12h30, just when I wanted to give her lunch. She was so tired even when I lifted her out of the car she carried on sleeping  in a head-upright position. But don't breathe a sigh of relief yet, because this beauty sleep only lasted about 30 mins! Aha as we speak she has just woken up from her afternoon nap after only about 30 mins again. Better go see if I can get her to drift off for at least another 20 min? perhaps? maybe?

Tonsilitis Monsterlitis

On Tuesday I got a call from Bilaal's teacher saying that she has a very sad boy with her who says he's eyes are burning and he is not feeling well. So I fetched him from school. He didn't have a fever or any cold or flu symptoms, but he did say that it felt like "there are speedbumps in my throat".

My immediate reaction was that he was probably coming down with a throat infection so I gave him a medicated fruit lolly and straight to bed. Now the strange thing is he was already on an antibiotic because the previous week he had an insect bite on his leg that became infected - cellulitis! Needless to say this didn't stop the nasties in the air! He slept nicely and still seemed ok, just tired when suddenly at about 5pm he's temperature spiked to 39 degrees and started crying bitterly that he's throat was burning. I quickly phoned the doctor who prescribed his antibiotics last week. Of course all the doctors rooms were closed already,so she advised that I just try to bring the temp down and monitor him through the night and if he didn't improve to bring him in the next morning.

What a long night. He just got worse and the temp just wouldn't come down. He was medicated, i gave him a sponge bath, I slept in his bed for most of the night with a damp cloth and a fan on, I even tried homeopathic stuff... nothing. Of course it didn't help that Sumayah kept waking up too so I was like a yo-yo between the two rooms all night. The very next morning I took him to the doctor and what do you know... those 'speedbumps' in his throat couldn't be a more apt description for Tonsilitits!

So my poor baby has been pretty much miserable with his throat speedbumps. Every so now and again he would just suddenly cry out in pain when he's throat suddenly burns. Anyone with kids I would recommend you get 'Viral Forte' throat lollies, they really do help with sore throats and yet appealing to the kids.

Sleep Training Day 1

Finally last night I had it and decided that tonight would be the night that sleep training will commence. usually Sumayah would sleep until the infamous witching hour at midnight and wake every 30 to 60 minutes only needing a pat to fall back to sleep. So basically I haven't been sleeping much! Fellow blogger Margot was my inspiration for my sleep training adventure. I used to read her blog greedily when she documented her experience so I was mentally prepared for the horrors of sleep training and was ready to take it on tonight! Of course I still made sure I picked up a copy of the baby-sleep-bible of our time...i.e. Baby Sense and read it thoroughly a few times. So according to this book if you follow the sleep training method it should take 2 to 4 days for baby to learn to fall asleep independently and sleep through the night. It also said that if you stay with your baby comforting her, but not picking her up it could take up to 20 minutes of crying before falling asleep. So let's go through the stages up to that point.
Stage 1: put her down drowsy, but awake. The room is dark and Sumayah is looking up at me bright-eyed the minute I put her in the cot. She just thinks we playing a game; until I try walking away that is! So I leave her to moan a little, but this soon turns into full on crying. I wait 2 minutes, pick her up to comfort her and put her back in her cot still drowsy, but awake.
Stage 2: she cries the minute I put her down, only this time I resist a whole 5 minutes! yay me!
Stage 3: crying and more crying, stretch it to 10 minutes
Stage 4: At around 12 minutes she possets, I pick her up and immediately she stops crying and her eyes droop, clearly she is exhausted from the crying, but as expected from this strong-willed little girl, the second I so much as lean over into the cot she cries. But I resist her another 5 minutes till I hear her posset again! All this crying is causing reflux. I pick her up, clean her arm and the blanket swiftly and immediately put her back in the cot. I am determined that this would be the 20 minute stretch that will end in sleep.
Stage 5: she's tossing and turing, still crying, but her cries are becoming less passionate. I'm watching the clock it's been 18 minutes now... Finally she just stops crying and is sleeping! I hang around in astonishement, 2 minutes later a last attempt at crying, but then she sleeps, and sleeps... 20 minutes exactly! I love you Baby Sense!

So now the plan is that everytime she wakes in the night I will follow the same sequence. The thing is this whole experience just makes me think of a line in a movie I watched ages ago. It was one of those shark atttack movies and Shakeel O'Neil's character says: "When you hold a hot pan, a second can feel like an hour, but when you're holding a hot woman, an hour can feel like a second..." Well when you are listening to your baby cry for 20 minutes, it feels like a century!

Stay tuned for an update on the rest of the night and sleep training day 2 coming soon on a blog near you!

Hey, how'd that cupboard get there?

I have been neglecting my blog for a few days now because I have been very very busy... enjoying the sun and sea in Cape Town. I am definately not complaining but all this baljaring can be very tiring. The other day we spent the whole day at the beach and you know when you return it's bath the kids, bath yourself, wet clothes in the wash, etc., etc. By the time I got into bed at 12 I was zonked! But So when Sumayah woke up at 2.30am I was less than pleased! In the pitch dark room I tried to settle her, with no idea what the time was only knowing that I felt like I had only slept 5 mimutes. Patting and shushing didn't help so I picked her up and proceeded to pace up and down with her hoping that this would lull her back to sleep. I am not totally certain how it happened, but the next thing I knew I just heard a bang and Sumayah crying! Somehow in my sleepy state I managed to close my eyes while pacing the room and walked slap bang into the cupboard... Sumayah and all! The poor child must have knocked her head lekker hard because she was crying so bitterly and I felt terrible! So I whipped out the dairies and all was forgiven... aah the beauty of breastfeeding. but the lesson to be learned - don't pace the room when you are half asleep!