Sunday, August 1, 2010

Adventures in the big cot and other events of the week

During the first night of swaddling/not-swaddling dramas, about two weeks ago, Little E had a night alone in her big cot. It was not a great success, and I decided that if I was going to be waking up multiple times a night I preferred to have E right next to me so I didn’t have to get out of bed, and we moved her back into our room the following night. However, her not being swaddled means she can wriggle about a lot more than previously, and I found that with her less than a foot away from my head, I was waking up every time she wiggled. After a particularly restless night mid-week we banished her to her own bedroom again. This will now be her fourth night in a row there. She is waking up and crying at least once per night, sometimes more, usually around 3.30am. This is not a very friendly time of night to be getting up, but she is fairly easy to get back to sleep, requiring the return of her dummy to her mouth and a few pats. Last night she was up about five times between 2.30 and 4.30 but we think that was because she was cold, as once I turned the heater on in her room she slept through until 7.00am, when she had her breakfast, fell asleep on my lap and then consented to go back to sleep until almost 8.30.

Little E’s day time sleeps also appear to have changed quite significantly. Until a few days ago she was quite predictable: after waking up at about 6.30 or 7.00am, she would be awake for about 90 minutes before sleeping for about 40 minutes, sometimes longer, and then waking up and eating. She would repeat this pattern pretty reliably all day. A few days ago she apparently decided that sleeping so much during the day is boring and she wants to be up for more like two to three hours at a time, and her day time sleeps have turned into micro-naps of about 20-30 minutes each. I am not yet very good at predicting when she is tired and have upset her by keeping her up far too long, or attempting to make her sleep before she is ready, both of which have resulted in extended bouts of grizzling, and then yelling. The pros of this new regime are that we can plan on being out for much longer periods – the mechanics of managing a sleep every 90 minutes plus a feed every two to two and a half hours made it quite hard to go places. The cons are that I quite liked getting 40 minutes to myself every couple of hours throughout the day and these new micro-naps are barely long enough to do anything!

Last week also heralded a rather depressing first: E's first illness. It was just a cold, but she and I succumbed simultaneously and were both quite sniffy and drippy and congested for a few days. She wasn’t as miserable as I had imagined a baby with a blocked nose might be; she was still able to eat quite well, and slept as per normal, but was very snuffly and congested, especially when she woke up from a nap.

The weekend heralded beautiful, un-winter like weather. Yesterday we had morning tea with D's parents and then Mum and I went on an expedition for much needed new glasses frames in the afternoon. In the evening we accomplished our first family night-time outing to somewhere other than someone's house. It was brief, just to the local gourmet hamburger bar, Flipside, and to its next door neighbour, a bar called The Stanley. The two have an arrangement whereby customers can eat burgers purchased at Flipside whilst having a drink at the Stanley, and we managed a hurried beer before Little E decided it was hometime. We were out for only an hour in total, and that hour was the very family friendly time of 5.30 to 6.30pm, but it felt like an accomplishment nonetheless. Today we had lunch at Mum and Dad's, our first meal at their house since E was born. We ate roast in the garden and the sunshine, the company and the food were all lovely!

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