Monday 30 April 2012

Sleeping through the night - don't make me laugh!!

My baby girl is now 9mths old and has not slept through the night since the day she was born.  She'd always been a light sleeper; even in hospital overnight when all the other babies on the ward slept through everything that was going on, my little precious would wake at the slightest sound that was made.  Every time the midwife came to check on the mums and babies she would wake, every time someone spoke she would wake and every time a mum came into the ward with her new baby, my little bundle of joy would wake.  I therefore spent all night following her birth walking her around the ward and chatting to the midwives on reception.  Unfortunately, I have never had more than 2hrs sleep at a time since then.

When, I wonder, can I have a good night's sleep?  Not any time soon by the looks of things.

My husband is reluctant to try any kind of controlled crying techniques as he has to get up at the crack of dawn to get to work so he wants a good night's sleep without listening to all the crying.  Therefore, it is down to mummy to go sort the baby out when she cries in the night.

Some nights have been particularly bad, and conscious of what the health visitors have said about not fussing over crying babies, not picking them up or taking them downstairs, I've opted to climb into the cot bed and sleep with my little baby!  It certainly helped to settle her and so far I've only done it twice in two months, usually when she is feeling particularly poorly.

How different my two girls are, the older one always slept well and had her first 5hr stint at around the 5mth stage.  Since then we've left her to cry herself to sleep (which thankfully didn't last long) and she quickly got the message that mummy and daddy aren't going to get her and has always managed to settle herself at night.

Unfortunately by little baby has not granted me such a luxury but I'm still hoping that as she gets older she will be able to sleep better and let me do the same!!

Tuesday 3 April 2012

The dreaded school holiday

Now that the Easter school holiday has well and truly begun I am already stressed beyond sanity.  My torment started earlier than most mums because the last day of term was an inset/teacher training day, so when all the other schools were still open, my daughter's was closed for the day.  Luckily on that day she just chilled and had a pyjama day and didn't do a lot.  Then it was the weekend and my husband was at home.  However, he may as well not have been because he was so busy getting on with a lot of his own things that he hardly spent any time with our little girl, who by Sunday was getting so fed up with not being able to spend any time with him that she was falling into one of her stroppy moods.

There are only so many times that a young child can play Monopoly and various other board games before losing interest, and so many times that we can draw, colour in pictures and make things.  The weather is too rubbish to go to the park where all the equipment are soaking wet and the air is so cold. Coupled with a screaming baby that won't sleep day or night and you have a mummy that's turned into a walking zombie!!

I'm all for short school holidays; at least for those who are working, trying to find childcare for such extended periods of time won't be such a monstrous task.  That is what I'm dreading when I return to work after my maternity leave, having to find childcare for both children during the school holidays, especially the 6week summer holiday will leave me at a loss - it will take up more than my monthly salary.  Is it really worth returning to work just for the sake of it?

Anyway, now the Easter Bank Holiday is coming up this weekend, we are all taking a trip to visit my mum and dad, which I am dreading because it means taking everything but the kitchen sink to accommodate our baby girl.  Also, because she doesn't sleep well most of the time, my mother is sure to moan about her own lack of sleep whilst we're there.  She's good at that, moaning and complaining about almost everything. She doesn't make allowances that our baby is still a baby (albeit almost a 9month old one) and that we are always the ones making the effort to visit her, she never comes to stay with us.

Hopefully over the weekend we will also be able to visit my cousin and her family who my daughter always enjoys playing with.  And my husband has taken a couple of days off which are tagged on the end of the Bank Holiday, so hopefully once we're back home, he will be able to spend some time with the eldest. However, I don't hold out much hope because he spends more time getting on with his own jobs than spending time with her or any of us really.

I hope these two weeks go quickly so that we can get back into the school routine and I can be less stressed....

Child of the week

Last Friday I found a sealed letter from school addressed to me.  I knew what it was about because other mothers had the same letter in previous weeks and I also knew that I wasn't supposed to tell my daughter what it was about, it was meant to be a surprise.

As I had thought, the letter stated that my daughter had been chosen to be child of the week and that she would get her certificate during morning worship the following Monday morning.  I was very excited because at every parent's evening the teacher always said that my daughter was such a hard worker, eager to please and is progressing extremely well. I always wondered when she would be child of the week; she must do something exceptional to receive such an award.  And now that she had been chosen, I kept wondering what it is that she had done so well; did she read an entire book without needing any prompts, did she do something really well in her maths class, or was really polite and used her manners, or did she help her little friends in some way when they were upset or struggling with their work.  I couldn't wait to find out and had to stop myself from mentioning it to her.

Morning worship began on the Monday morning and when my daughter was mentioned as child of the week, her teacher commented that she was chosen to get this award because she did so well in her numeracy, especially adding up 2 digit numbers - I didn't even know she could do that.  Her teacher also said that she added the numbers up so quickly that she couldn't believe her eyes.

It was a lovely service and each class had a chosen someone to be child of the week.  Then there were other little certificates to hand out for those children who had earned their next lot of smiley faces for doing good work. Others also got special mentions and stickers for 100% attendance for the school term.   My daughter got mentioned for both these things as well.

Mummy is so proud that my girl is doing so well at school!