Ok, I'll admit I'm not very good about frequent blogging. I keep meaning to update the blog, write new posts but to be honest I really don't have a lot of time available... which is good right? My little boy Fred, is now 1 year old and he just takes up so much time that as soon as I get in from work, we have to play, get him fed, bath him, get him ready for bed and then begin the 12 hour struggle of getting him to sleep and to stay asleep. Catherine and I also have to fit in, our own dinner, cleaning, a wee bit of conversation between ourselves and of course the Holy Grail when you have a child, sleep for ourselves. There is just no time for blogging.
Sleep is a commodity that we just don't get enough of these days. Fred, bless his little pampers will just not sleep through the night. He used to. He used to have his bath, then have a bottle and then smile at me as I laid him down in the cot, close his eyes and sleep through to 6.30am or even 7am. Bliss. It was not to last however. About 3 months ago, Fred would start waking up 3 or 4 times a night. He'd only go to sleep if he had a bottle and so he was drinking an obscene amount of milk. We were getting worried that we were creating a milky, obese baby! After his bottle, he'd need constant rocking whilst he fell asleep in our arms before finally allowing us to lay him down in the cot and creep out of his room.
This was not good. Especially, when in our care free, no child days, we had taken up all the carpets in the flat and sanded all the floor boards. It looks very nice but if anything is going to wake up your child, it's not the cars passing outside his window, nor the Rotary Club making their annual Christmas run up our street with Christmas carols blasting out and Santa screaming out "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas!" at 8.30 in the evening. No. What will wake up your child and get him standing up in his cot looking at you as if to say,
"Where do you think you're going?" is a creaky bloody floor board. I despise floor boards now and frequently swear at them. Sometimes not even in my own house. So I turn around and follow his silent (or crying baby talk) language. "Come over here... that's it. Now pick me up and rock me to sleep again. You woke me up standing on that floor board and now you have to pay the consequences. We may be here for some time daddy. I'm just warning you. Sleep doesn't exist in your world any more. Get over it."
And it's true. Sleep, or at least my previous view of sleep has gone. It will not return again until Fred and any siblings we give him are in their teens when they'll want as much sleep as we do. It's quite scary to think that I won't get a prolonged stretch of sleep again until I'm in my fifties!
Anyway, we started trying to teach Fred to settle himself in to sleep rather than have a bottle or be rocked until we drop. We've had to change his night time routine a bit by giving him his bath and his bottle in a different sequence, having ten minutes in his room just pottering about before we put him in his cot. Hopefully this will disassociate his view of sleep in needing a bottle of milk and being rocked before he'll contemplate sleeping. It's only been a few nights now but he's already stopped wanting the milk every time he wakes up and we're nearly there with the rocking. We're putting him in his cot and reading to him until he falls asleep through tiredness or boredom. It's dare I say it, quite enjoyable (for a while). We're reading him one of the many Winnie the Pooh books that Catherine has retained from her childhood. Their great books and I enjoy reading them to Fred, doing the voices of Pooh, Piglet et all.
Before I sign off, it's now 20th December so nearly time for Christmas. I love Christmas. I also guessing every Christmas from now on will also get more exciting year by year with Fred getting older and older. He obviously doesn't know anything about Christmas and when we put his presents in front of him, he'll either smile and then attack another cupboard or drawer, or he rip the paper off, discard the present and continue to devour the ripped off paper. He does love paper.
Ok, that's it for this second post. I'll try to post again but if I don't manage it till after Christmas, I wish everyone who reads this post, indeed everyone on the planet a very merry Christmas. God bless each and every one of you and peace to all beings on earth. x
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