The sleep saga continues

Since she was about 9 months old, Little E has been a pretty good sleeper. She sleeps through the night. She self-settles. She's been on one day nap since she was about 11 months old, currently of about two hours duration.

But for the last week or so it's been taking her an inordinately long time to fall asleep at night. During the day she puts herself to sleep with minimal fuss, perhaps 10-15 minutes of talking to herself and then she's out. All of a sudden, at night, without anything else having changed, it's taking more than an hour (previously she took half an hour or less). She wakes up at the same time in the morning, just an hour shorter on sleep than previously. She is then grumpy all morning and needs to have her nap an hour earlier, making for a very long afternoon. This evening I put her to bed an hour earlier, thinking that maybe I was letting her get over tired. That was an hour and fifteen minutes ago, and she's still in there, in almost complete darkness, chatting away.

Any thoughts?

A happy footnote to teethbrushing traumas

Hallelujah, Little E is not going to have cavities before the age of two. I whinged at length here about what a tough time we were having with teethbrushing.

The magic solution? She gets to watch two minutes of Playschool on YouTube while we brush her teeth. Everytime she wriggles, or tries to shove away the toothbrush, or yells, we pause it. We only press 'play' when she sits still with her mouth open.

I have to confess that when Lovely Friend E first told me that this was what they do for their little boy I thought it sounded a bit ridiculous. Now I am a sworn convert. It worked from almost the first night. Before I boast too much, I should add that Little E might be wilier than I am confessing to, as *somewhere* in this house, are not one but two toddler toothbrushes. I say "somewhere" as we suspect that Little E has stashed them somewhere tricky. Perhaps we need one of the clever inventions in the picture ...

* Image from http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.outblush.com/get/women/images/2007/04/happy-toothbrush-holder.jpg

My baby is 18 months old

... and not really a baby anymore. It seems like Lovely Little E has done lots of growing and developing in the last month or so. She has cracked 11kg and is almost 80cm tall. Her hair is longer, and has become quite wavy at the ends. It's not the same length all round though, much longer at the back. I'm waiting for the top bits to lengthen before we attempt a proper hair cut.

She can use a spoon and fork pretty well, although it's very much a case of her using them when/if she feels like it, her fingers the rest of the time, and if it's bluberries and yoghurt then she might well use her tongue! She can drink extremely competently from cups with or without handles, and she can also deliberately pour a full cup of water all over the floor and then say in surprised tones "oh no! oh no!" When told it is time to sit in her high chair she races around collecting an army of toys and sitting them on the table in front of her high chair to play audience to her meal time. One doll or teddy is never enough; having put one up she races back to the toy shelf insisting "moremore! moremore!"

So much language, 50 or more words now we think. Recent additions are "Granny," "Amber"  (Grandma & Grandpa's dog - "Am-bah!" said in tones of great delight) and a slurred version of her name. We are working on "down please Mama" as a means of telling us she has had enough to eat, rather than announcing this fact by standing up in the high chair and launching herself at whoever races toward her (the lack of a five point harness is proving a real down side to the Ikea high chair!) She has to say goodbye to everything and everyone: "bye bye park," "bye bye shop," "bye bye trolley."


Aside from four or five days recently during which we think she had hand, foot and mouth disease (so gross!) her sleeping continues to be a dream (excusing the bad pun). A good two hours in the middle of day, then 7pm to 630-ish am.


Her play is more sophisticated and imaginative. We recently acquired a plastic stove (thank you verge collection), a plastic farm house ($4 - thank you op shop!) and a beautiful wooden doll's house (thank you friend's garage sale). All of these are very popular. For some reason her favourite thing about the doll's house is the little high chair that came with it - surprising given how keen she usually is to get out of the real thing!

It is a lovely age.