Sunday 8 January 2017

Sleep

Oh to sleep this deep. Alice isn't one for scheduled daytime in-the-cot-like-the-books-say naps. She prefers the floppy-limb-pin-me-to-the-seat type. If I'm lucky she might doze in the pushchair but that does require me taking her out in said pushchair, for roughly 4 miles without stopping, of which I have been somewhat lax of late. I get nothing done during daylight hours. It has taken me a long time to accept this. I have NCT friends who manage to cook dinner and bake cakes and do chores like folding pants. Daily. I'm chuffed if I manage to make a sandwich, feed the cat and replenish the toilet rolls. We are however very good at external activities - notably coffee and cake, shopping (still requires multiple fly-bys - gone are the days of standing in the same spot to ponder a purchase) and our new weekly 'baby tar and feathers' class, I mean, art class. Yes - this 7 month old is now taken to a regular 'eat as much paint, glitter and paper as you can' class. I'm hoping that she will be included in the RA Summer Exhibition this year. On our fridge.

I can't complain though. We have a bedtime routine in place, and we've been lucky. Whilst Alice doesn't really do daytime sleep she has, for the most part, slept through the night since she was about 4 months old. She is usually in her cot by 7pm - which then gives us roughly four hours to do chores, cook, wash up, collapse on the sofa, flick through Instagram (me), read football news/play iPad games (Mr M) and get cross at the things that we should be doing - like going through the boxes gathering dust and taking up space in the conservatory and spare room, emailing friends, knitting, planning the future, world peace. Late to bed, always making time to read by shortening sleep time (me - stupid) we get woken up by Madame either shouting, coo-ing or filling her nappy (the video monitor microphone is crystal clear) from 6am onwards. She has however taken to waking up at 3.22 every so often. Oddly, I used to wake up daily at 3.21 when work was especially horrid back in the day. I know we've been fortunate - some of the NCT babies are still waking up every couple of hours which is just awful. I am, however, finding the inconsistency a bit of a killer. Some say it's teething, others weaning. I just know I'd like a sleep week - a little bit like reading week at Uni - just to catch up, and then the merry-go-round can start again.

Activities for this week:
Riverside walk with coffee and cake
Coffee and cake followed by the 'loud music and enthusiastic people' baby class
Walk with new friend and baby followed by coffee
Tar and feathers baby class followed by hose down and weekly germ-fest and possibly coffee
Baby yoga class followed by jasmine tea
Finish brilliant new read - Golden Hill
Work out how to free up the storage blockage on my iPhone
Persevere with weaning despite Alice's clamped-shut-bottom-lip-sucked-in-spoon-shall-not-pass mouth
Go to bed early

Important points to note:
All coffee is decaffeinated
All cake is full fat, preferably with icing
Most classes require my 'isn't this fun' smile, when sometimes it really, really isn't
Germ-fest is our local playgroup - it is astonishing the speed with which green snot forms following attendance

Have a great week!

4 comments:

  1. I woke at 0321 this morning so I must have been coming out in sympathy with the adorable Miss A. Don't panic about the weaning too much - MasterM lived on cucumber and milk for three months and it hasn't done him too much harm in the long run. I can't offer any advice on daytime naps because neither of mine were remotely interested in sleeping but I did find that nights became easier when they were more mobile because you could run them around outside, stick them in the bath and then they were asleep before you could snap your fingers.

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    1. How funny, but thank you. I'm still having to feed by stealth, but we had voluntary mouth opening success today with apricot and nutmeg. Hardly surprising given how much natural sugar is in there!

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  2. .... trust me... one day she'll be a teenager and you'll have trouble getting out of bed! Seems impossible... but true!

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