Sleep - or lack of it.

So there I was on Tamba's website updating my address and such, when I see their 'Sleep' page. Mmm. This'll be good, I think. Generally it was filled with the usual advice, and then I get to this fabulous list... followed by my comments.

Tamba’s tips for good sleep

1. Establish and follow a flexible routine for sleeping during the day and at bedtime. - flexible how? A routine isn't really a routine if it's too flexible... not sure what they're getting at here.
2. Allow babies to get to sleep on their own rather than rocking or cuddling them to sleep. - ALLOW? Yeah, that'd be nice. To allow my babies to go to sleep. Force them to finally shut up after hours of whining, more like!
3. Try not to rush and pick up your babies if you hear them stir. As babies sleep they go through cycles so will stir and seem to be waking at various times. If left alone, they will learn to get themselves back into a deeper sleep. - Yeah... they also have a habit of suddenly crying very loudly, and almost always disturb their twin.
4. Take your babies out in the fresh air every day. Research has shown that babies who go out sleep better. - Yes, when we're outside. What about when we're inside?! Waaaah.
5. Some parents find that once their babies reach six months or so, they will entertain each other when they first wake up. - Or rather, play with each other at the beginning of naptime...for hours...until they're shattered and it's almost time for tea!
6. Once your babies have reached nine or ten months old, you can try a number of sleep training methods.  For example the ‘Checking Method’ or ‘Controlled Crying Technique’ to build good sleep patterns, or Pantley’s No Cry Sleep Solution. - Now this, we have tried for sure. It has had mixed results. A lot of these things are easy peasy to do with one child. When you have twins (and an older one that can be disturbed at night) things are much harder!
7. Visit ISIS, a research based infant sleep website for more information. - Again, fantastic for the single child of parents with masses of time. ;)

Keep smiling!

The value of naptime...

...at the moment, is pretty low. Isaac suddenly had issues going to sleep in the day, and while those are now slightly improved, he'll only sleep properly if he's on my lap. Again. Sadly this means the tasks I'm able to accomplish are limited. I've not tried him in the sling for a while but I'm not sure he'll like it much (he went off it a while ago).

People were making comments like, "Hopefully he'll have a nice long sleep this afternoon, since he's been awake for so long. Then you can have a sleep too!"

These comments are pretty unhelpful when he'll only sleep on me. Yeah, I might be able to get a nap like that, admittedly. But do they not realise the immense amount of STUFF I have to do around the house - that I leave and leave coz I don't have the time or whatever and then it just gets hideous and terrible to deal with, and makes me more depressed and is harder to face...

That's not my kitchen.. but it could be. Well, I just tidied mine somewhat so the whole messy thing doesn't have the same wow factor.
(Photo: Rob Thurman)

Isaac and his cuteness

Yeah, sometimes I can't get over how cute kids can look. Here's mine, learning to play the piano at 10 weeks old...!

Sewing, washing, sleeping...

Well, the dress is coming along, but not entirely finished. Just got the bottom seam to do, and I really wasn't sure how to do it. Because of the pattern being slightly different to what I was doing, I should have done the bottom seam before everything else, not after! But oh well, I think I can make it look okay. I'm going to be sad to give this dress away! I couldn't really make another to give away though, this one's taken me far too long already - Z's already nearly 3 weeks old, so goodness, it'd better fit her!

Sleep on a bed of dreams

Guess what? We finally have a bed! Shock horror! That said, sleeping on a mattress on the floor is hardly the worst thing in the world, but it was getting to the point where heaving myself up each morning was a bit annoying; oh the joys of weighing nearly two stone more than usual…

Of course the reason we’d been without a bed for so long was that we needed to get the rest of SJ’s stuff out of storage, and of course he’d been putting it off for yonks. I’d been on at him to phone the people up at half term (March?), so he finally does so right near the end. This would have been ok if it hadn’t been perfectly timed with the van needing to go into the garage. Ok, so slight delay there. So we went anyway, to see what we could pick up in the car. A fair bit, it turned out, but not everything, obviously.

So tired!

Soooo tired.

Just all the time, now. Not entirely sure if this is from being bigger than I should be or just what happens by this stage! If I want to get anywhere into the evening I've got to lie down/nap in the afternoon, or I'm out by 8pm. I'm actually starting to enjoy these little breaks in the day to be honest... liking my bed a little bit too much at the moment I think! Of course there are days when a rest just doesn't happen, and then I get way to tired and grumpy and wishing I wasn't pregnant! If I look after myself it's not too bad though, so it's funny to get to that stage quite so often when the next day I can feel fine.