Sleeping Through The Night

"Does she sleep through the night?"  "Is she a good sleeper?" "Does she keep you up much?"
Are all questions I'm pretty sure I've come to despise hearing.


You are told that by the age of 8 months your baby should be able to sleep through the night (which actually they define sleeping through the night as a solid, undisturbed 8 hours). I say. Bollocks.

Zoe has never been a great sleeper at night, no idea why, it's just never happened for us. I think at first it was a case of "oh god, what am I doing wrong?" Trawling through google, and blogs to find the answer, not leaving the house so that nap routine isn't upset or thrown out of the window. Not letting James see to her in the night for fear of it ruining our chances even more. Doing everything the HV tells you to do, to the point where you think if you give her any more solid food she may actually burst, or just be sick everywhere.

Obviously it does get to a point where I'm frustrated when she doesn't want to be put back down and just wants to cuddle especially on nights where I have to get up for work in the morning, it's not one of those days where I can wear my pyjamas and not leave the house. I actually have to function outside the house, in the real world, with other adults. I think until she understands me, and I can tell her that it's bedtime and she must sleep I can cope with midnight cuddles. I remember James coming back to bed after he had started to get up in the night for her and telling me off for keeping those cuddles to myself. Now it's a case of who can get them first!

Then there are those nights, which must be pure fluke, when she does a solid 6-8 hours. (We rarely get more than 4) And I wake up feeling more tired than I usual am! I'm pretty sure that when she eventually does begin going solidly through the night that I'm going to have to train myself not to wake up and also sleep through the night again.



Eventually I accepted it, I just don't have one of those babies that wants to sleep all the way through. And it's fine, it just means that in the middle of the night when she wakes up, I get a cuddle. I get 10 more minutes with her, in that nice, warm, snuggly embrace where she buries her face into my neck and wraps her arms around me and falls back to sleep as I gently rock with her. 

The first time she napped in her cot, she looks tiny! September 2, 2014 (2 months old)

Creating The Balance

11 1/2 Weeks Old

I never really thought that I would ever be able to sit down for 10 minutes, have a cup of tea, a biscuit or check Facebook without feeling guilty. Whether it was guilt for not paying to attention to Zoe for a few minutes, or for not doing household chores like the laundry, the washing up or simply making the bed. I guess this is what they call Mummy guilt? 

Obviously in the beginning when she slept all the time it was super easy - well I say that, I found myself exhausted all the time, and the thought of having to get up and take washing upstairs was even more draining. 

Now Zoe is 10 months old, I find everything much easier. She happily amuses herself, playing with her toys. I can take her into the kitchen and leave her on the floor with a few kitchen things and do the washing up, make some lunch, without her screaming or crying at me for attention. I can hang the washing outside whilst she tries to catch the cat, or Zoe pulls it out of the basket onto the dirty floor. And then while she sleeps I get the time for myself, to watch the program that I missed the other day because she insisted on stealing the remote and pressing all the buttons. Or do the kitchen jobs quicker so that I can spend more time with her between nap times. 

Nap times = me time.

So now whilst she sleeps, I can have that 10 minutes. That cup of tea. My fix of the hot guy in my favourite TV program. Write this blog (which is a completely new thing to me!)

9 1/2 Months Old