A Matter of Choice

I started this post way back in March when Louka was just 7 months old,  I'd started to say how he was yet to sleep through the night, how he woke up every couple of hours and how I wondered when he might start to sleep better. Since then I've written this post so many times in my head in the middle of the night, but never got round to actually writing it, I thought surely by the time I get round to it he will have improved! Leo was not a good sleeper, although as a small baby he was fine, predictable - bed at 7pm, bottle at 11pm and 3am and up between 5am and on a very good day near to 7am.  He dropped his 3am bottle sometime before 6 months and we continued with the 11pm for a while longer. After 6 months (when we moved to Cyprus) he got worse waking 2 or 3 times a night but usually settling quite easily maybe with a little drink of water or a quick cuddle. At about 18 months he got worse and after one night of waking every 20 minutes for no apparent re...

Years ago, my 8pm was once a time for finishing work or getting ready to go out, in some ways the start of the day, or at least the best bit! 8pm  - just down the road in Agia Napa, you can still see people heading back to their hotels after a day at the beach, it's not even a time for many of the holiday makers there to even be going out for the evening,  well when lots of places don't even open until 1am you can't peak too early! My 8pm for the last few years has been the time Aaron gets home from work, it's usually when I would have dinner ready for. Leo would have been in bed for an hour having gone to bed dead on 7pm almost every night for a long time now.  He's always been a very early riser and making his bedtime later usually means he gets up even earlier  (WHY, what is that all about?!) so I like to stick to it. Also he's a big stickler for routine so it's easier not to mess with it - anything for a quiet life! Saying that, I've always be...

I like to be as organised as possible in everything I do and waiting to bring a baby home is no exception.  Before Leo arrived my hospital bag was packed weeks in advance and his room was all ready and waiting.  We were living with my parents at the time as it was just prior to our move to Cyprus.  We took over 2 bedrooms of their 3 bedroom house, one for us and the spare bedroom had a cot squeezed in among the boxes waiting to be shipped to our new home. We had a large wicker style moses basket for him on loan from my Mother in law, the same one in fact that his Aunt, Uncle and Daddy slept in. We stood it in the cot (it just about fitted!) as we had no stand for it.  We also had a 'normal' moses basket which stayed downstairs for the daytime.  As we couldn't fit either into our bedroom,  to begin with I slept in the spare bed in the same room as his cot. Leo was so big that the he used to wake himself up by hitting the side of the wicker...

I've never been a fan of early mornings, only getting up when I had to, from my early 6am starts when I worked at Safeways or even 9am starts in my last job which required me to get up by what now seems like the perfectly sensible time of 7.30. My Dad on the other hand is one of those annoying morning people, when I lived at home he would drive me nuts by being happy and singing every morning (once he got thrown out of his works canteen for being too happy!)  but on the upside of that I used to get a cup of tea made and in the winter he would happily scrape the ice of my car for me! When Leo was born I didn't mind the early starts as much as I thought I would - being born in May it meant the mornings were light and I quite enjoyed the early morning feeds but looking back the fact I'd be asleep again by 9am with him obviously helped! These days mornings are generally not as much fun, especially after a unsettled uncomfortable nights sleep due to the bump and a toddler...

I need a plan, I need a plan so we can get some more sleep. I will Google a solution in a minute, but first I will have a little rant and share with my lovely readers....lots of whom are Mums of various age children and might just give me some useful advice. Leo does not sleep through the night, he did for a while but that seems like a distant memory right now. As a small baby he went to bed at 7pm, fed like clockwork at 11pm, 3am then waking at 7am - perfect. At that time I admit I did slightly look forward to the days when he would drop the 3am feed, now I wish we were still on that routine as it was better than were we are 18 months down the line. Where did I go wrong? I'm fairly sure I know, the question is how the hell do I get out of this? By the time he was 6 months old he was sleeping through some nights, he usually still had an 11pm ish bottle but that was fine. Then we had some time staying with friends before our move to Cyprus. He was teething and unsettled and I ...