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!

Dressed up and ready to face the snow :)

If I thought one child was hard...

Well, if I thought I had very little time while being a mother to one child, I was wrong. These days I have three kids, and barely ten minutes to call my own!

Yes, long time no post, but I've not been away long enough for two further pregnancies - last March I gave birth to my beautiful twin boys, Jacob and Toby. So, needless to say, things like this blog went rather on the backburner. I see it as a good thing that I stopped being bored enough to blog all the time, but even so, I miss it somewhat. So every now and then I will try to come back on here and post about some tidbit of my life :)

About 12 hours old. (Toby is on the left)

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)

Flowery Dress - the making of (Part 3)

Here we are at the 3rd instalment of the flowery dress. In the previous post, I'd just finished gathering the skirt, so next is sewing it onto the bodice.

Sewing the skirt and bodice together.