It's been too long!

Gee I have been really slack of late, sorry about that.

We had a busy weekend and time got away from me.

Had a lovely picnic in the park with our besties and their gorgeous 8 month old daughter on Sunday. It was a lovely day, fabulous weather and good company.

Monday I borrowed the car so I could go and catch up with some friends and went to IKEA for the meet up. I had their infamous Swedish meatballs for the first time, not bad at all.

I had been on tooth watch lately as our bubba had the signs that they were on the way and the two telltale bumps on his bottom gum. Well I can report that yesterday they had both cut through and he now has the beginnings of his two bottom teeth. I think they had been giving him a bit of grief, poor mite.

I can't believe how big he is getting and all the new skills he is learning, time is getting away. Before we know it he will be 1, well it feels that way.

We both so look forward to when he is a bit bigger and we can do more fun things with him. We dream of the day we can take our kids to Disneyland and lots of other adventures.

We've got another busy weekend planned, a 30th birthday and a 1st birthday on the same day followed by a BBQ at a friends place on the Sunday.

I really look forward to weekends though as it is an excuse to get out of the house!

Also the discussion of when to start trying for number two has arisen, my husband would like to start trying now and I was leaning towards after our son turns 1. My sister was over today though and she agrees with my husband that we should have them close together. Some of the things she said gave me food for thought and made me think that maybe I had been too dismissive of my husbands thoughts and we should revisit the conversation. We shall see...

Not much else has been happening with me, since I am mostly at home I don't get up to much. My husband is always saying 'tell me something exciting'...uh sorry hon but I don't have a lot to report, unless you are interested in how many times I changed a nappy, fed or sang a song to our son :)

I love him to bits but I do sometimes miss that adult interaction. Which was another argument for the hubby in relation to going again sooner - the sooner we have them the sooner it will be for me to go back to work. I guess it makes sense.

Right well I am off to hang out some washing (oh the joys), till next time.

It's going to be a long day

So last Friday night I put our son in to his cot overnight for the first time...disaster ensued. He woke every hour overnight and I was exhausted the next day.

Still managed to suck it up and go out to breakfast, I hate the thought of missing out. I had the option of staying home and sleeping in and my husband would have taken our son. My problem is also that once I am awake that is pretty much it, I am up for the day.

Saturday night I relented and brought him in to bed with us because I was so exhausted from the previous night, naughty mummy.

Sunday we had my sister, her husband and my niece around for a roast dinner...yum. First time I had cooked a roast pork and it turned out well.

I tried him back in his cot on Sunday night and he improved on the night before, there were a couple of 2 and 3 hour blocks between waking and replacing the dummy for most of them was enough to get him back to sleep. Only had to feed him once so that wasn't too bad.

However, last night was another difficult one. He woke alot and the dummy was not enough to get him back to sleep, he was wide awake a couple of times and difficult to re-settle. I caved at 5am and brought him into bed with us so I could try and get a little more sleep.

So very tired, what I would give for a good night's sleep. I was hoping that somehow he would magically start sleeping better overnight once I put him in his cot. No such luck though, I keep telling myself that I need to suck it up and persevere...we will get there in the end.

I don't know if it is the lack of sleep but I am feeling a bit meh and down today...

No point throwing myself a pity party, I will get over it. No time to wallow, I have a baby to look after.

More Gorgeousness

As I have previously mentioned, I am getting a little obsessed with all hand made goodness for my son. I stumbled across another lovely page on facebook called Row Made (Row Made Facebook Page) that does cute lil' monsters. I happened to stumble across it at the right time as she was having a sale, see what I got below. It has been a hit, my son loves to munch on his little taggy head.

I also wanted to share another lovely bit of writing in regards to motherhood:

Also another small success to report on here, this morning when my son woke up after his usual 40 minute sleep cycle I went in to settle him and then left soon after to see if he would go back to sleep. It took a little while, there was a little bit of grizzling followed by a little bit of babbling and then...silence! When I went in to check on him (30 mins had passed since he first woke up) he was asleep, he managed to self settle and then proceeded to sleep another 40 mins :) 

He is definitely getting better during the day, now if only he would sleep better during the night. I keep hoping that somehow when I transfer him to his cot for overnight sleeps he will magically sleep longer! Ha...one can dream. A not so comforting thought - last night my husband reminded me that he slept in his parents bed until he went to school! Arghhh, no way will I let that happen...I need to reclaim my side of the bed so I can sleep better.

Although my new motto is - Sleep is overrated. ha ha

Hit & Miss

So last week I had good intentions of starting a proper routine...

Then I went and got sick! So I have been a bit slack in sticking to it, but I have implemented changes and as the title suggest...it has been hit and miss.

Sometimes when I have a 'win' I think it is just a fluke, it is not always repeated. Lately I have been successful in getting him re-settled after the first sleep cycle to go back down for a second (without having to pick him up). It doesn't work every time but I am still claiming it.

Overnight is still a dismal failure, the last few nights he has been waking every couple of hours (thank-god I haven't put him in his cot yet, that would have been really exhausting). It is made even harder by the fact that I am not feeling 100% at the moment.

I hope it is just a phase...

In other news, I wanted to share a cute poem I came across the other day:

I am your parent, you are my child
I am your quiet place, you are my wild


I am your calm face, you are my giggle
I am your wait, you are my wiggle


I am your dinner, you are my chocolate cake
I am your bedtime, you are my wide awake


I am your lullaby, you are my peekaboo
I am your goodnight kiss, you are my I love you

Soldier On

I say soldier on because I haven't been well since last Thursday and yet you just have to suck it up and get on with it. I am feeling a little knackered though.

It is times like these I wish my son wasn't so against formula so I could have a break, he could go off with daddy and I could just rest and chill out.

Another gf recently said that her husband gets to have all these hours being him and she only gets snippets of being her (if you know what I mean). I could totally relate to that and knew what she meant. You become a different version of yourself once you have a baby - you become mum. There is very little time off from being on mum duty where you can just be you, without being the mum version. I don't know if that makes sense to people.

I am torn though, even though I would like a break...I would miss my son. I wouldn't really know what to do with myself. Although I think it would be nice to just have some quiet time and relax.

I think my husband doesn't think that I trust that he can look after our son on his own, that is not the case...I am more concerned with how our son would go without me. There are times when nobody but me can comfort him and I don't like the thought of him getting upset if I am not there to make it better.

This is probably why we still haven't left him with his nanna so we can go see that movie. I want to...I just stress that he will get really worked up and I am not sure that I could enjoy my time away while that thought is running through my mind.

I am going to have to do it sometime though, I am still yet to have spent more than an hour away from him since he was born almost 5 months ago (and that is to do grocery shopping so nothing exciting).

I was almost a little jealous of the time my husband got to spend away, although he missed our son like crazy, but he got to go out to dinner and socialise etc. I was definitely envious...

I had said before our son was born that I wanted us to have a date night once a month where we we go out to dinner or a movie or just something to spend some quality time just the two of us. I am still yet to make that happen but I have no one to blame for that but myself. I haven't felt able to leave him with anyone yet for fear of how he will react.

Anyway I have rambled enough, I guess I am just tired and in need of a time-out.

Whoops...have been a bit slack

Sorry I haven't posted these last couple of days, need a slap on the wrist. Mind you, there are only a small few that are my close friends that I know check in, so I don't think I have disappointed too many people, ha.

Has been a little hectic since dropping my husband off at the airport Tuesday night.

That first night was a little challenging, not sure if little man was aware that daddy wasn't around as he took a mammoth 2 hours to settle to go to sleep. Maybe he was testing mummy. Managed to survive that without losing my mind.

Yesterday was good, we had a good girlfriend of mine come over with her baby girl and hung out for the day. This is the girlfriend who lent me the Tizzie Hall book so was offering me encouragement and advice with implementing and sticking with the routine.

We haven't been perfect with that but we are trying, getting there slowly. I was happy last night that he slept from his dream feed at 10pm until 3am, so that was a decent block for him. Although he then woke again at 5am but still a slight success in my eyes.

Of course we have been missing daddy, only 1 more sleep to go until we get to see him. I am coping a lot better than I thought I would, I was a bit anxious about him being away. I am thankful that it isn't for a longer period though.

Tonight my mother-in-law is coming over to hang out and shout take-away, will be nice to have some company.

1 more sleep to go...

Till the hubby is away for a few nights, part of me is like 'suck it up, it's only a few nights'. Then there is the other part of me that will miss him terribly and is a little apprehensive about how I will go being on my own with our son.

Deep down I know I will be fine, I am with him just the two of us most of the time anyway. I think it is also partly that I crave that companionship and adult conversation when he gets home from work. Like most men, my husband is not big on talking for ages on the phone. Don't get me wrong, he calls me every day to see how things are going etc, it is just that they rarely last more than a minute or two.

Although absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder when it comes to us, I think we are both guilty of sometimes taking the other for granted. Time apart makes us both appreciate what we have.

So an update on the whole sleep situation, I have decided I can't try and stretch our son out too much as that just seems to make him harder to settle and doesn't result in him sleeping any longer.

A girlfriend has given me a copy of her book to read 'Save Our Sleep' by Tizzie Hall. I was always against the idea of a strict regimen/routine. I didn't want to be restricted by it and feel as though I had to plan my life around those specific times. However I am getting to a point where I am starting to realise that having some sort of structure to our day might see improvements. I can't even begin to imagine having him sleep through the night, it would be like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Ha!

I think it is going to take some time though, he still doesn't know how to resettle himself after one sleep cycle and I have found that the only way to get him to go back to sleep for a second cycle, is if I pick him up and rock/pat/sway etc. He is lasting longer between feeds now though, thankfully, as he was wanting it every couple of hours or so previously.

So I will try and attempt to stick to some sort of routine, today is the first day and he hasn't been able to last as long between sleeps or sleep as long as he should each time so we are a bit out of whack. Will persevere and hope for the best...wish me luck.

Checking in

Just thought I would check in and update on how things are going with the whole sleep experiment...

Not too great to be honest, it just makes him overtired and a little cranky and harder to settle. So far it hasn't made him sleep any longer than usual. I will persevere and hope for a pay off at the end.

I don't know why it is but he always seems to be more difficult to settle on weekends, I don't know if it is because we are out and about and it disrupts things. Even if we are at home he still tends to protest a little more than usual.

He is being particularly stubborn this afternoon about not going down for asleep, or just when you think you have managed it, he goes and wakes up again 5 mins later.

Hopefully he won't be a cranky baby tonight as we are going for dinner at a friends place.

In other crappy news, only 3 more sleeps until the husband goes away :(

To routine or not to routine, that is the question.

Hubby has made the suggestion that we should consider trying to get our son in to some sort of routine to try and encourage him to sleep longer. He is currently fed on demand and sleeps when he's tired, which while I am sure is all good for him, is not so good for mummy.

I kind of have the attitude of 'it's easier said than done’; not really relishing the hard work that it will likely take to get it to stick. However, once it is successful I will be much better for it.

I am going to give it a shot; hubby has suggested stretching him out longer during the day for his sleeps in the hopes that it will make him sleep better overnight. He still wakes every few hours (sometimes less on the odd occasion) during the night, thankfully we are co-sleeping so it makes it easier to feed him/get him back to sleep. Although I am not (and have not in a long time) getting a good night's sleep, so it is worth a shot to try something.

I am going to try and stretch him out gradually, he was getting tired after only being up for an hour to an hour and a half. So I will try and increase his awake time in half hour increments every nap time and see how it goes. I am doubtful that he will magically start sleeping longer straight away but hopefully it won't take too long to catch on.

I also want to attempt to move him in to his cot for overnight sleeps sometime soon, in the hope that it will allow me to be more comfortable for the intervals of sleep that I do get! For some reason our son, while always placed in the middle of the bed, tends to gravitate towards me/my side so that I only end up with a little sliver on the edge.

So I will leave it there for now and will report back on how things go.