Sleep – NEW YUMMY MUMMY

HOW TO GET BABY TO 😴

When they are born they just sleep all the time (mostly on you) . Evenings are filled with this tiny, warm body snuggled in to you; Those are the best evenings you ever had… and then they grow and you need to start thinking about routine – How will I get them to sleep on their own? How will I get them not to be attached to my breast / bottle for the whole evening/night?

How do I get my baby to sleep on their own ? Swaddle, Sheepskin, Whisbear and some notes taking and rocking will be involved (oh and dummy is they take it – Skylar refuses it)

1. OBSERVATION

Observe for a week when your baby gets tired or sleeps. Look out for tiredness symptoms like rubbing eyes, pulling ear, yawning, falling asleep when being fed or when taken for a walk. Make notes each time your baby goes to sleep; if you do it over a week you should see a clear sleeping pattern forming. That’s when you will start to put your baby to sleep to make sure that they are ready for a nap. Why is it important? You won’t be able to get a not tired or overtired baby to sleep.

As a guide

3-6 months old baby 4 naps a day

6-12 months old baby 3 naps a day

12-18 months old baby 2 naps a day

18 months and over one nap a day.

Please do remember that this is just a guide and every baby is different .
2. MAKE THE BED

Make it warm, cosy and comfortable. They love sleeping on you because you are soft, comfortable and warm. Putting your baby to a cold Moses basket or crib/cot will not make them want to stay there. That’s where sheepskin is an amazing accessory. It keeps your baby body temperate perfect, is soft and cosy.

3. WRAP IT UP

Swaddling has worked perfectly for me with both of our girls. It makes babies feel secure, stops their arms from waking them up. They feel exactly how they did when they were in our tummies.

4. TURN UP THE WHITE NOISE

We all heard that white noise is good for calming babies as that is what they hear for the 9 months that they were inside us. It won’t get your baby magically to sleep but it will help them. We used Whisbear which reacts to noise and automatically turns itself on, which is great at night.

5. SET-UP THE SCENE

Dark and quiet rooms are very helpful with getting your baby to sleep especially when the baby gets a little bit older.

6. PUT DOWN & PICK UP OVER AND OVER AGAIN

Purpose of it is to teach your baby to self soothe. You put your baby down when its drowsy but not fully asleep. If he/she starts crying you pick them up and rock them so they are drowsy again and put them down…. over and over again.

7. OLD BORING ROUTINE

Babies from around 3-4 months should have a bed routine and daily routine. Though routines are boring and oh so predictable kids love them. It also gives you a chance to plan your day and get everything done when your little one is resting. Don’t get me wrong a daily routine doesn’t mean that you have to be home every single day 7 days a week at the same time and cancel all appointments or meetings which don’t fit in your baby schedule. Babies can nap in the pram from time to time or their nap can be moved if needed. I am a firm believer that we shouldn’t run our life around baby and baby’s naps, it’s all about balancing your needs and baby’s needs.

Our gorgeous Skylar just turned 3 months. Until now she would always fall asleep on my breast, and I would spend the whole evening just cuddling her; on another hand she always sleeps very well at night, waking up only once or twice for food and then going back to sleep. It’s the time now to start getting proper routine in place and to slowly start teaching her how to go to sleep on her own.

My main advice to everybody is : just chill! There is a lot of different techniques and opinions on how to teach your baby to self soothe (which I will write about in my next post) some you will like some you will disagree with. Don’t put pressure on yourself and your baby. See what works for you, and do what you want to do; as far as it works for you and your baby and both of you are happy that the only thing that matters.

YES I AM WRTITING ABOUT SLEEP AGAIN !!!!

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

I thought that I had it all sorted: perfect napping routine, Chloe sleeping throuh the night and Chloe bed time routine… And then it all went wrong!! Without any reason Chloe started to refuse to take her usual naps, or would sleep only for 30 min. Then as soon as we moved her to her own bed at night she started getting up twice a night for her milk. To add to everything the last 3 evenings she just became so active and excited before going to bed that putting her to sleep became a nightmare !!! We went from my husband reading her bed time story and Chloe falling asleep quietly to her just kicking, talking and jumping round her cot like crazy.

Why oh why does it happen ??!! There is no reason for any of it as we haven change her routine! ! I think that she is playing a game with me !! Or she is teaching me the lesson of who the boss is 😁

So off I am back to the drawing board.

1.I need to figure out new day routine as Chloe obviously doesn’t like the old one. Need to go back to observing her to see when she wants to nap and for how long. Then fit her feeds in between to make sure she has enough. Hopefully if she starts getting more sleep in the day it will help with her night sleeping.

2.Change her evening routine. This one is really weird as we have had this same routine for the last 5 months and up until recently it worked perfectly !! We eat dinner, have a bath, get ready to bed and then read the story. While Chloe lays in her bed… Will try to chang it a little bit and see if reeding the story before putting her in to the cot will work.

I just drive myself crazy asking question Why Why Why ?! And not getting any answers ! Why is she not sleeping? is she too tired? Is she teething? Is she not tired ???!!!!

BEST SWADDLE ever !

BABY STUFF - DO WE NEED ALL OF IT ?

GRO SNUG is 2 in 1 Swaddle and Newborn Grobag from The Gro Company.

The Gro-snug enables you to swaddle arms in or out for a great night’s sleep. Extremely easy to use with only a long zip that opens from the bottom for nappy changes. Because this snug has a zip instead of folding it makes it impossible for the baby to wriggle out of it. Unique design creates space for hip healthy natural positions!

Remember that you shouldn’t swaddle baby who can turn around.

Yet another SLEEP REGRESSION!!! 😳

BABY ADVICE, MY BABY EXPERIENCE

As soon as the terrible two’s have descended on us so did the sleep regression. On a positive note our terrible two’s lasted only 2 weeks and we now have our daughter back!!!! Yuppieeee!!!! The sleep regression lasted around 3 weeks and I dare to say it was more painful! Disturbed sleep while pregnant and working full time does not go well together! Did you hear that Chloe?????!!!!

Between the ages of 18-24 months kids go through yet another sleep regression; I hate them!!!! I can just about cope with a teething toddler and lack of sleep that this has been giving us in the last 14 months or so. With teething at least I know that it will last 2 or 3 nights and I also have my best friend Neurophen supporting me 😊 afterwards we will be getting our full night’s sleep; so it’s not too bad. With sleep regression we lose our evenings and our sleep at night!

It all started from the innocent “not being able to go to sleep on her own. We had that previously for 2 or 3 nights if she was teething but not for almost 3 weeks, and not so dramatic! As soon as Chloe wasn’t able to see me or my husband she would be up standing in her cot crying her heart out; I must say it was heartbreaking! As soon as she would see us she would lay down and try and go to sleep, while checking every couple of seconds if one of us is still there. It started taking her over an hour to fall asleep!!!!! 😳 Then came the waking up at night and crying for her Mummy a few times each night 😳

We have tried a trick our friends told us about; each night stand/lie down a little bit further torwards the door, then you stand outside the door and, then finally you don’t show yourself you just shusshhhh them (or as my friends did you put only socks on the floor right next to the door so they think that you are still there … But you are not 😂) And luckily it worked very well!!!!With every step towards the door the night started to improve as well, she was calling/crying for us less and less.

We are done with it now but it was hard guys. We are now back to the odd disturbed nights with the standard: teething, cold or one of 50 different reasons when they wake up at night 😊

You all are sleeping tight and me ?? No

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

4:30 am in the morning … Been awake for around 96 minutes …. And it doesn’t seem as if I am going to sleep any time soon, why? Trying to get Chloe in to her routine of sleeping through the night.
You know when you reed that you shouldn’t be bringing your baby to your bed when she/he is unwell, that you shouldn’t be breast feeding them for comfort, you shouldn’t be picking them up and rocking … I can understand why they say NOT to do it.

Few weeks back Chloe has had her first cold and straight after she went through seperation anxiety, this means a lot of getting up at night and crying. I couldn’t see her being so upset and just leave her to it, so I breastfeed her (it was really working), cuddled her a lot and was sometimes even bringing her to bed with me (which I have never done before). Now I have my 11months old waking up between 4am and 5 am demanding to be feed, and not being able to go back to sleep without it. This has to stop as I can’t be doing it when I go back to work… I have been trying to do it now for over a week but always gave in to her demands so that me and my husband could get some sleep but now with hubby away on business trip I am on the mission to stop it and to stick to it.

I feel so sorry for her as she has been trying to go to sleep for the last hour without a success…. I think that this might be a very long night ….

ANOTHER BIG STEP : Mummy emotional, Chloe oblivious.

BABY ADVICE, MY BABY EXPERIENCE

We have had quite a few big steps happening recently. As I mentioned in previous posts we started introducing solid food, Chloe has moved from the carrycot to a pram. Now was the time to start with another milestone : starting to move Chloe in to her own room !!!! 😳

Just thinking about it makes me scared and tearful 🙂 Soon Chloe will be 6 months old (what???!!!! Where did the time go???) and that’s when by UK guidance they don’t have to sleep in this same room as you. I think that it will help with all of us sleeping much better and start preparing me slowly emotionally for what will come (maternity leave will end at some point)

We decided to start with Baby steps by putting Chloe for her naps in to her cot. We will do it for a week and then try to put her there for a night. Chloe knows her room and her cot pretty well as we always change her there, put her to play in her cot etc. that’s why we can start with naps straight away (Advice is that you start with leaving babies to play in the cot first)

Surprisingly after 5 min of looking round Chloe just went to sleep, not bothered by new bed, or how big deal it is for her Mum !

If this is such a big deal for me how the hell will I leave her there for the whole night ??? How will I sleep without her next to me?? And God only knows how will I leave her in the nursery??!!!!

Someone was a happy bunny after her nap

Baby Chloe decides that I won’t sleep tonight !!!

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

I may have got 2 hours of Sleep last night. Why? Maybe ask Chloe as I don’t have a clue 😊 it might have been teething, struggling with doing poo ( sorry for being blunt 😁) or just a bad night. Whatever it was made Chloe cry every hour and it was taking while to calm her. Desperation for sleep was so big that I even took her to our bed and let her sleep with us ( this didn’t seem to help much (I may have lost my magic touch))

Let’s hope that whatever it was is gone now and I can sleep tonight !

CLOCK CHANGE and the baby

BABY ADVICE, MY BABY EXPERIENCE

We all know how this small clock change messes us up ! It’s inly an hour but it sims like our body doesn’t know what is going on. Now imagine that you are only few months old 😊 this equals trouble !

Few days ago Chloe started getting up earlier which was messing up the whole daily routine ( sleeping every 2 hours). So this time change should work perfectly and bring our routine back on track. ( we normally get up at 7am and sleep every two hours, eat every 4 and go to bed by 7pm. Chloe started to get up at 6am which meant that I ether had to keep her up longer between naps which was making her really tired and cranky; or I had to keep her up longer in the evening which meant that she was oils struggle to go to sleep.

I decided to act. Plan of action ? Just stick to exactly this same routine and dosing things at the time we usually do it. It doesn’t matter that really is an hour earlier, just stick to the time.

Plan to wake your baby up an hour earlier to start the day. That way your baby won’t notice any differece and the time change won’t upset your baby’s routine.

Hope that all of you mums up there had an easy transition from wint r to summer time 🌞🌸🌺🌻🌷

SLEEPING THROUGHT THE NIGHT (I wish) … ALMOST !!!!!

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

We have a break through !!!!!!

With the most enormous smile on my face I can announce that for the fist time ever Chloe has got up only 1 for her milk !!!!!!! Only 1 !!!!! After getting up every 2 hours for a feed then every 4 hours and then at 4 months going back to getting up every 2 hours we FINALY have 1 feed only ( every 6 hours ) ! I am so happy and so proud of Chloe !!!! Hopeful it means that we are only steps away from sleeping through the whole night ?….

…. If I had to get up only once to feed …Why am I so tired ???!!!! 😊

6:30 AM BABY ALARM GOES OFF 😁

MY BABY EXPERIENCE

I am used to disturbed sleep by now. Getting up every 2,3 or 4 hours to feed my little princess – it’s fine My body knows that nower days we are constantly tired 😊. What I’m also used to is being able to sleep untill 8am. For some reason 8am was always making me feel better about my lack of sleep, probably because I could think in my head oh it’s already 8, everyone are already at work and I am still in bed (not thinking about all of the night feeds I have done) .

Now Chloe decided to take that away from me as well as good night sleep !!!!!!!!!!! Now Chloe wants to get up at 6:30am and play!!! Play at 6:30am 😳😳😳 non of my arguments that it’s to early to play are working 🙂 If I am lucky I manage to slee through her talking till 7am …. Good news ? It will all pass …. Soon? Hopefully 😁