“Mummy, can I have my red plane?” It is 8.30pm, and Piglet has just appeared at the kitchen door, where I am trying to wolf down my dinner as quickly as possible before the next interruption. It’s the fourth time he has made a bid for freedom from the tyranny of bedtime; the last involving…
Tag: sleep-or lack thereof
Diary of a Bedtime
“You were sleeping through by his age!” My mother’s words, uttered at regular intervals since my son turned three months old, are reaching a fever pitch. My son is almost three. He is still not “sleeping through.” OK, that is a slight lie. He has slept through, at least once, but to do so on…
Why Co-Sleeping is Right for Me
As I write, Piglet is asleep next to me while I tap away at the laptop in the blue light that I fear will one day be the new tobacco, slowly killing us all by interfering with our natural rhythms, in our new house, in the king size bed that my mother fears is going to…
Ten Weird Things About Having a Newborn
Ah, the newborn stage. Fluffy booties, scratch mittens and squidgy babies sleeping with their arms above their heads. Congratulation cards, helium balloons and fussing relatives. Blind panic, sleepless nights and soreness in areas you never knew you had. We all know about these things, the hallmarks of a new baby. We all know it’s not…
The Twenty Stages of Getting a Toddler to Sleep
When you are 20 months old and a tiny tyrant, there comes a point in every day, sometime after the closing bars of the CBeebies Goodnight song, when the time has quite literally come to say goodnight, to say sleep tight until the morning light. That time rarely comes until at least an hour and…
The Secret to Toddler Sleep: Nursery
Sleep. I used to love sleep. I could sleep all day. A friend of mine actually gave me the nickname “sloth.” Sadly, it does not appear that my son has inherited my great love of slumber. At nursery however, my son is a very different beast. He is apparently quite content to lie down in…
Will this woeful pestilence ever be gone?
At 1.40am this morning my dreams were punctured by the sound of ear-splitting screams coming from the floor next to my bed. I leaned over, my mind a fug, not sure exactly what was going on, and in my zombie-like state I picked up Piglet, who had rolled out of bed. Rolled out of bed….
Routine for a 16 month old
HA HA HA HA HA. You didn’t think I actually HAD a routine, did you? This weekend, my mother went away. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” she has now taken to asking me, even when she is only popping out to the cinema for a well deserved few hours to herself….
Drowsy but Awake
Piglet is having a nap *KLAXON* The flip side of this is that I am now scared to move. I am backed into a corner of my own bed, based on the advice that “babies should nap in the place where they usually go to sleep” which, for Piglet, would be my bed. This also…
Life: Entirely Governed by Piglet’s Naps or Lack Thereof
Piglet is currently forgoing his afternoon nap in favour of lying in the baby gym chewing his favourite hanging plastic ring. He is concentrating very hard. OK he just started screaming for no apparent reason. Just removed him from the baby gym and sat him in his bouncy chair, where he is violently shaking a…