Tough Times | Sleep is for the Weak

Yo Mama

Posted by Josie on Sep 30, 2009 in Uncategorized | 25 comments

200301647-001 Well you can’t knock Kai for his ability to keep me on my toes.

The night before last he broke all records sleeping the longest stretch of his ENTIRE LIFE!!! A whole six and half hours all in a row. And after he’d woken up, guzzled down his usual few gallons of milk and gone back to sleep he only woke up a further ONCE!!!!!!!

I’m not sure you’ve grasped the significance of this.

He woke up TWICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And yes, the exclamation marks totally justified. And YES I’m going to shout a lot in this post and DON’T CARE.

Because not only did he only wake up twice, he didn’t want to get up till 7am… AND… spent the whole night in his cot in his OWN ROOM.

Perhaps you’re wondering (like I did) whether someone secretly swapped out my genetically flawed Hyper-No-Sleep 5000 baby with a regular, normal, standard issue one.

But no, it was really Kai.

Do you know how I know?

Because of LAST night. Last night, after jubilantly celebrating all day that ‘This was IT baby!’ and that we’d really turned a corner, phoning all my friends and relatives and stopping random people in the street to grab them by their lapels and look with crazy frenzy into their frightened eyes and squeal “SIX AND A HALF HOURS!!”

Last night when I sauntered off to bed safe in the knowledge that I most likely had at least three hours before being woken up, and probably another three or four hour stretch after that.

Last night when Kai was awake all fricking night.

So no. Doesn’t look like that was IT baby. Looks like that was just a horrible cruel fluke.Quite possibly because Kai nearly knocked himself out on the skirting board that day and I had two rather large glasses of wine. Yep, nothing like a mild concussion and alcohol laced breast milk to guarantee some sleep.

And of course because I’d been treated to night of half-decent sleep the night before, a night of virtually no sleep hit me extra hard. And I was so tired this morning that… well… I’ll tell you how tired I was. EXACTLY how tired.

Because I’m starting a new thing. It’s called ‘This Mama so tired’.

It’s kinda like ‘Yo Mama so fat’ except better. And less horribly offensive. (And yes I know it’s not grammatically correct but it’s hip, innit?)

So here’s mine – then you have to give me yours:

This Mama so tired that… she realised that she’d thrown her dirty underwear in the toilet rather than in the laundry basket

This Mama so tired that… when writing a birthday card for one of Kai’s buddy’s she wrote

To Kai, Happy Birthday Love Kai x

This Mama so tired that… she can’t SEE!

I’m not kidding! I seriously thought I might be going blind. I booked an appointment at the opticians and prepared myself for the worst but turns out my eye sight in test is fine (phew!). Well, no worse than it’s ever been – I still have a slightly lazy eye. Apparently I’m just so exhausted that even the muscles in my eyes are tired! Thus giving me rather screwy vision, especially in bright light. The lovely leather elbow-patch cladded Optician prescribed me a decent pair of sunglasses and some sleep. He even may have used the word ‘dear’ and patted my arm.

THAT’S how tired I am.

So how tired are you Mama?

P.S. I’m know I’m being horrible and excluding Dads here but Yo Pappa doesn’t really sound right does it? Men folk – if you can pull it off or think of a Dad equivalent then by all means do so…

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Out, Out Damn Spot!

Posted by Josie on Sep 10, 2009 in Kai, Me, Parenting | 28 comments

My mum has this theory that we’re all born with a ‘guilt’ gene that gets switched on when you have a baby.

I think she may be right.

It’s probably next to the selfish gene actually. Trying to steal it’s cake but then feeling dreadful about it afterwards.

Since becoming a mum I seem to live in a state of perpetual guilt, and the last couple of weeks have been no exception. In fact, I seem to be finding a whole range of new things to feel guilty about lately. Here is a ‘brief’ (ha ha yeah right!) run-down:

Source of agonising guilt #1 – the whole work/mum/wife/housekeeper balance thing

I want to be a good mother, I want to give Kai lots of one-on-one attention and fill his days with fun things to do.

I want to be a good writer, I want to do something for ‘me’ that is separate from my identity as a mother and gives me an important feeling of self-worth. I NEED this in a way that is hard to describe.

I want the house not to look like a shit-hole.

I want to be an attentive and caring wife, putting Ant’s needs before my own sometimes and be prepared to compromise. And not be a grumpy cow all the time.

Why is it I only seem to be able to achieve one of these things by neglecting all the others??

Source of agonising guilt #2 – I have been hiding out

For some reason I’m finding the whole sociable aspect of motherhood really, unbelievably hard at the moment. I’ve always had a bit of a reclusive nature when the chips are down, retreating to my duvet and my head when things get tough. I’ve been so tired lately. Kai’s been sleeping very badly again and I’ve been desperately trying to juggle all the things in guilt-trip #1. Since Kai came along the duvet days are less practical so the head retreats are getting more and more attractive and pervasive and I find myself avoiding social contact, hiding out at home or doing things with just me and Kai. Which is rubbish frankly, rubbish for me and especially rubbish for Kai who loves, and deserves, lots of time with other children (hence the guilt trip)

I don’t know why. The Competitive Mums / ‘Other Mother’ brigade don’t help – since I always manage to come away from their company feeling about as competent and worthy as dung beetle with two legs that can only go round in circles and not even shovel poo very successfully (which is an apt metaphor for motherhood if I ever heard one).

But they’re not the ONLY mums. There are nice ones! REALLY nice ones who make me feel safe and accepted and not judged. Granted, they’re in the minority but still. They are there.

So why am I avoiding them??

And lastly the biggy…

Source of agonising guilt #3 – a new tough love regime for Kai

I’ve talked about Kai’s sleep problems before, and also that I long ago made the decision not to use ‘crying-it-out’ as a solution. Once again I will stress, this is not about my judging other mums, but about me saying that I don’t believe letting bad sleepers cry it out is the only way to teach them to sleep. Maybe the quickest, but not your only option.

We’ve made real progress with Kai over the last few months. On a good night now he is quite happy to have a good long feed till he’s nice and sleepy and then lie down in his cot and go to sleep on his own (without his dummy!!) More often now when he does stir he will settle himself and go back to sleep. Until we come to bed that is. Then ALL Kai wants to do is sleep curled between us, feeding on and off for most of the night, and fidgeting and fussing. I’m exhausted. I’m loosing weight again, I’m looking tired and worn out. And actually that second part of the night? It’s getting worse.

On the one hand all the old problems are still there, the extreme wakefulness, the very real difficulty in getting back to sleep when he’s woken up, the possible nightmares/teething/tummy aches/fact that it’s a Tuesday, or whatever other mysterious thing it is that seems to make sleep such an issue for him.

But on the other hand? He’s not a little baby any more. He’s eating well, getting plenty of food and milk during the day. He’s coping better with separation and is secure and confident. He understands when you say no and bye bye and what it means. He’s also learning how to get his own way – unlike when he was an infant, what Kai wants now isn’t always what he needs.

Right now, now he’s older, secure and healthy, what he needs is sleep. He doesn’t need milk all night. And my instinct tells me he’s ready, ready in a way he hasn’t been before.

So we’re making some changes.

I’m not expecting him to go without comfort at night. I don’t think my role as parent ends at 7.30pm. But I am expecting him to go without milk. At the very least getting down to maybe only one or two feeds at night.

I’m not leaving him to cry it out. But I am accepting there may well be some crying involved. And as my very lovely friend pointed out to me today:

“A child fussing and crying in the arms of a loving parent is not the same as crying it out” – thank you again Ruthie, I needed to hear that.

So there we go. Not unreasonable I think but still,

GUILT GUILT GUILT GUILT GUILT!!!

So come on then – as a parent what’s your big source of guilt right now? Purge people, PURGE!

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The (Wide-Awake) Elephant In the Room

Posted by Josie on Aug 3, 2009 in Uncategorized | 9 comments

It’s probably about time I tackled a theme that underpins a lot of what I talk about on this blog, but that so far I’ve managed to avoid talking about too much.

Yep, you’ve guessed it. It’s the big fat horrible Sleep Monster.

Those of you that know me well will have had to listen to me drivel on about most of what follows for the last 12 months so can be politely excused to go and do something more interesting. Those of you that don’t know me quite so well but have often wondered why it is I look like an ageing zombie with a slight hysterical edge to my voice when you bump into me in the street, you’re about to find out. And those of you that don’t know me at all? Well then I guess this is all going to be a treasure trove of new delights and excitement.

You see, Kai is a bit of a problem sleeper. And when I say a bit, I mean a rather extraordinary large bit. Continent sized. Small orbiting moon sized.

Now before we continue I don’t want you to hold it against him. He is probably the loveliest (albeit slightly odd and hyperactive) child, you could ever have the pleasure of meeting. He does lots and lots of things very, very well.

It’s just that sleeping isn’t one of them.

It has been from day one, which is my one small comfort that I haven’t done something horribly wrong to make him this way. It started out with colic – 12 weeks of screaming punctuated only by marathon breastfeeds, with any little sleep achieved solely through repetitive motion and/or holding and copius amounts of Infacol suspension. Once the crying stopped, the sleep battles continued for long months during which I desperately tried to find a way that Kai would fall asleep without a great deal of assistance and failing miserably. At it’s worst, Kai would wake every three quarters of an hour (the length of one sleep cycle) all through the night. On average it was every one to two hours, at best maybe three or four (and I can still count on two hands the number of times he’s slept longer than a four hour stretch). Each time he woke he would need a great deal of help getting back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried to encourage him otherwise, and even with help, would find it almost impossibly difficult.

Just for the record (and because if you mention the fact that your child is a poor sleeper, people feel compelled, no, OBLIGATED to bombard you with advice and I’m sure you’re eagerly waiting for you opportunity suggest one or more of the following), here’s what we’ve tried that hasn’t made a blind bit of difference:

Not feeding Kai to sleep
Feeding Kai to sleep (well, works to GET him to sleep, just not to keep him asleep)
Putting Kai down awake and encouraging him to fall asleep on his own. Featuring the torturous ‘pick-up-put down’ technique. I’m not kidding I stuck at this one religiously for months and all it did was give me a bad back and made me ill to the point of collapse.
Putting Kai down only once he was in a deep sleep (thanks Dr Sears for that one)
Music (featuring every bad pun of a baby album known to man – Baroque a-by Baby was my fave)
A hammock cot (seemed to be working for a month till Kai steadfastedly refused to go in it again)
Leaving an item of my clothing with him
Dream feeding (that’s when the baby’s asleep right? It doesn’t count if he just wakes up wanting milk)
Introducing a comforter (just becomes another thing to play with or throw in the middle of the night)
Sleeping in his own room (no improvement in sleep, in fact it got WORSE! and quadruple the work for me)
Black-out curtains
A variety of assorted sleep wear and coverings
Changing his nappy half way through the night
Not changing his nappy and instead padding him out like the Michelin Man
Starting solids (they told me this was the key when he was 4 months old. Guess what…it wasn’t. The boy eats like a horse and it STILL hasn’t made a difference)
Giving him more milk during the day (seriously? Have you seen how often this boy feeds?)
Cutting down breastfeeds in the night
Working on his day time naps
Wearing himself out more during the day. Learning to crawl made no difference. Long sessions in the pool made no difference. In fact you’ve probably never met a more active baby than Kai. He just doesn’t do still.

And before you say it….

a bedtime routine. I could win awards for my bedtime routine. It is flawless. It includes a long wind-down time and all the right sleep cues. It just doesn’t work.

Two things I haven’t done:

Forced him to night-wean.
Left him to cry.

Yes I know, you’re now all sitting back with an air of smugness thinking “well, what does she expect!”. Don’t judge me for it. Maybe it worked for you and your child. But it’s not for me. Because Kai doesn’t just moan for a bit. He sobs. And he sobs. To the point of hysteria. For hours and hours. Till he chokes and is sick.

I can’t do it. Not to him and not to me. And the night feeds? Well I think he’s the best person to decide what amount of milk he does and doesn’t need. And I’m convinced that the night feeds are what have allowed me to carry on producing milk for so long and grow such an incredibly healthy chunky boy. So we’ll leave those two things alone thank you very much.

Moving on…

So why does he have so much trouble staying asleep? It’s a mystery to be honest. On any one night half a dozen or more things seem to be the culprit (and wanting to feed is by far in the minority here for reasons why he wakes up). Separation anxiety is a biggy, teething another (this boy teethes like you wouldn’t believe). He gets tummy ache. He gets nightmares. He sleep crawls and climbs about his cot. He gets distracted by the tiny line of light from between the curtains or from the digital clock and decides that must mean it’s time to get up. He thinks 3am is a very good time to be wide awake and practice singing and jumping about on mummy and daddy. And sometimes, yes, he seems to get genuinely hungry and need to down gallons of milk before being able to go back to sleep. But not by any means every time he wakes up.

In short, he’s just hopeless.

In short, it’s been a complete and utter nightmare.

A turning point came when I gave in. When I threw all the sleep books out the window, bought a co-sleeper crib that allowed me to deal with Kai without getting out of bed, and stopped trying to fix it. Because by the looks of things I was going to burn out loooong before Kai got the hang of things. I HAD burned out, in fact. I’d lost weight, I was exhausted, I was making myself ill.

Enough was enough.

We’re now a few months down the line of the ‘No Try Sleep Solution’ (haha that was a sleep training joke – you won’t get it unless your name is Elizabeth Pantley) and do you know what? Giving up was the best thing we could of done.

Because at the end of this long dark tunnel there is emerging a tiny little glimmering light of hope. Since I’ve given in and just gone with it, there have been some improvements, small ones but significant ones none the less. Kai’s waking up less. He’s feeding less. He’s even falling asleep on his own and re-settling himself when he stirs (well… sometimes). Twice this week I’ve managed to have an entirely uninterupted evening.

Yep. He’s actually getting better.

Ok we’re rather a long way off him sleeping through the night but we are definitely moving towards maybe only 2 or 3 wake-ups a night, at least on a good night anway.

And that my friends, is MORE than good enough for me right now.

Thanks for listening. And if you see me in the street looking slightly frayed? Well now you’ll know why.

And buy me cake.

Foot Note:

Did I mention that I was an appalling sleeper as a child? that I didn’t sleep through the night till I was three? That my poor mother resorted to drugging me so she could get some shut-eye?

Yep. Karmic payback is a bitch. At least it proves that the Universe has sense of humour I suppose.

Summer Essentials

Posted by Josie on Jul 30, 2009 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

Today I am taking part in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop for the first time. Lovely Kat sets up some writing prompts and prompts us to umm…write!

So I’ve chosen #5 - List your 7 most favourite summer items.

Now before I start let me just add how much I have enjoyed other people’s accounts of their favourite summer items. Air conditioning, industrial power fans, sunblock, sexy bathing suits. Feel like rubbing it in some more? For here in the UK our summer for the last month has looked like this…

rain

So now I’ve set the mood and without further ado, here are my top 7 essential items for surviving our pathetic British excuse for a summer:

1. Umbrella-ella-ella OH

Umbrella

Or even better…

Umbrella Hat

…to keep your hands free for frantic power walking around the streets with the pushchair in an effort to get your poor cabin-fevered child to nap, screaming at the lights to change to red in time so you don’t have to stop and inevitably wake him up.

2. Funky Wellies

For puddle splashing and surviving random flash-floods in Sainsbury’s supermarket carpark.

3. At least 10 indoor clothes airers

DSCF3427

To dry the mountain of washing accumulating in your bathroom that has been hung outside to dry, got wetter and been brought back in again at least half a dozen times. Usually I’m quite Zen about my washing getting caught in the rain. It began wet…it has returned to wetness… I have lost nothing – that sort of thing. I’d usually just leave it out till it dried again but as using that strategy may mean a single load of washing takes about, oh I don’t know, two months to dry, I’ve had to resort to turning my house into a 1930′s Chinese Laundry.

NOTE: Extremely beautiful new nappies!!! Which thankfully dry very quickly and are absolutely my new favourite thing…ever! Expect a gushing evangelical blog post about them very soon.

4. Laptop

DELL___DELL_XPS_M1330_LAPTOP_652

My ultimate surviving rainy days stuck indoors must have item (along with #5). To be kept on to allow ‘tweeting to stay sane’ therapy and sneaky blog writing whenever the baby is distracted (see #6) or temporarily trapped in his ‘den’ under the dining table.

5. Chocolate

cadbury-milk-chocolate

‘Nuff said.

6. Toys encouraging obsessive, repetitive and absorbing play
(to allow more time for #4 & 5)

Most notably this toy:

ring stacker

Kai will happily play with this for HOURS. Put the rings on. Take the rings off. Throw rings at mummy. Push rings under sofa and into other irretrievable places while mummy is paying absolute full attention and not nodding off. Honest.

Other rainy day obsessive Kai games include: balancing the pig on the tractor game (don’t ask me why – it’s always the pig), devil jigsaw and Kai’s all time favourite, the take-things-out-of-a-container-and-put-them-back-in-again game.

7. A Watch

watch