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Apologies for not managing to post daily over the last few days. It's been quite manic with the work, so every spare minute has been spent working. I quite often write this blog while feeding Rosemary, yet even much that time, has been devoted to one-handed working.
So, Rosemary is now sleeping through. Seems to have happened pretty much on the dot of 3 months, which is interesting as it's widely reported that this is when babies tend to start sleeping through. In our August babies club on Babyworld some of the women who were already mums said that it was very likely that this would be the case. It's nice to get decent chunks of sleep and I still have the closeness of the late night and early morning feeds, so I'm not feeling as sad as I thought I would.
She also seems to be sleeping more in the day - more along the lines of what's considered 'normal'. She seems to be tending towards a total of around 14-16 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period. She's tending to sleep for a chunk of between 5 and 8 hours in the night. I think it depends on whether she's been snacking a lot in the evening or has saved it up for a bit feed last thing (seems to sleep longer with the latter), though it could well have nothing to do with that, and just be a coincidence. She then sleeps for another chunk in the morning - usually back in her crib now. How long that is for depends on how much she's managed to feed at the early morning feed. If she manages 30 minutes then she seems to be able to sleep for another 3 or 4 hours, but if she only manages 10 minutes or less, then she's likely to wake up after 1 or 2 hours.
She then seems to have a very alert, playing with mummy period for between 1 hour and 2 hours. She gets dressed then and has some time on her changing mat, then some time under her play gym, time in her chair singing, reading, talking with me and sometimes some time on my lap/the desk/table talking more closely. She'll then have a good big feed and go to sleep for a while in her chair. (I haven't tried putting her in her crib for her daytime sleeps really, so don't know if she would be happy there or not.) How long for can vary. Sometimes she'll have a shorter (maybe 2 hours) nap and then have some awake time around lunchtime. Other times she'll sleep for 5-6 hours and have a long awake time in the late afternoon and evening.
We've not been managing to get out until quite late most of the week and so only managing a stroll round the park and visit to the Co-op. (Although, we did go to postnatal group - the last one - on Tuesday morning.) Unfortunately, it's getting dark quite early these days and she's not hugely keen on the dark. Though perhaps I need to try taking her out in the dark more, to get her more used to it.
It's also getting a lot colder, of course, and I'm having to persuade her that a hat is a good thing to wear and that mittens should stay on her hands. She does seem to be happier in a jacket or something with a hood, rather than a hat, actually, so I might see if we can get more of those. Going to try her in one of her snowsuits soon, I think. Think they might be particularly useful for going in the carrier, rather than the buggy.
Developmentally, she's rolling onto her side on her changing mat, though hasn't rolled all the way yet. She has picked up Nellie the Elephant a few times now and held her above her head. We have this on video and hopefully will upload it soon (I may ask Chris to do it, actually, as my time is so limited) so you can see it. She's increasing her range of sounds and seems to be at her most vocal in the evening.
I decided to use baby bath and shampoo when bathing her last night, as I was concerned that her hair might be getting a bit mucky from all the times she possets (spelling?) while on her changing mat and it dribbles round the back of her head. She also seems to trap dirt in between her fingers, because she often holds her hands in very tight fists. Anyway, I wasn't planning on going with the soap and shampoo until she was crawling, because that's when they tend to start sweating and also (obviously) picking up lots of dirt. But I caved in now, instead. She hasn't had any adverse reactions that I've noticed so far. So I may well continue with that. I'm also tempted to increase the number of baths she has, but we'll see about that.
Anyway, all in all it's been a good few days for Rosemary. I'm exhausted, though, and do wish I could be a 'normal' mum sometimes and not have the added responsibility of working. It's not much fun when every moment of Rosemary sleeping during the day has to be used for working. It would be nice to, oh, I don't know, play a computer game or something (hmm, why would I use that as an example?). Do some studying (somehow don't think I'll be doing any more OU courses for a long while!) maybe. Of course, I do get to do relaxing things like watching TV or reading while she's feeding and can (at the moment, anyway) watch TV while I'm playing with her, so I do get some 'leisure time' then. And I get to go out walking and meet people for coffee or lunch, which I never used to have time to do. So I have a much more varied life than I used to. I'm much, much fitter too. All this pushing a buggy is great. Still have the tummy flap of flab, though. Don't know how to get rid of that.
Anyway, I might not do any work today. (Already finished something off this morning and got it uploaded, I mean for the rest of the day.) I might go back to bed for the hour or so that she's going to continue sleeping and read or get some more sleep. Then I might go into town with Chris this morning and wander round the market and maybe have lunch. And use Rosemary's sleeping time this afternoon for me. (Or perhaps for housework - :P)
Today was a sleepless day. Rosemary woke at 7.45am and didn't sleep all day, apart from a couple of minutes, here and there.
She had a dirty nappy in the morning and the rest were wet ones. The morning was spent with Rosemary in her chair and me chatting with her while trying to do some work at the same time. Basically it would be 5-10 minutes of work, while she was happy amusing herself, followed by 15-20 minutes of chatting, singing, reading, etc. The most efficient work was done while feeding her, as we don't really tend to talk when feeding. The work was finished at lunchtime, which was a big relief, although it was only one chunk of the work, so it wasn't really the end.
Sasha calls shortly after the work was finished to see if I wanted to go for coffee in the afternoon. I was happy to do so, as I wanted to take Rosemary into town to see if she'd fall asleep from the buggy's motion and also to see if we could find a 'snot sucker' anywhere in town. (Obviously I'd be happy to go for a coffee generally, anyway, but in the olden days I wouldn't have contemplated it, when in 'deadline mode'. It's nice to be able to combine essential parts of Rosemary's care, such as going for a walk or buying nappies, with other pleasant activities, like meeting friends and families for coffee or lunch.)
We went in a bit early, so we could do the shopping first. Only needed a couple of small things from Somerfield and then it was a case of trawling through the chemists asking if they had a snot sucker. The lady in Boots knew what I was talking about, but they didn't have any - everywhere else I caused much mirth by describing what a snot sucker was. Nowhere had one, though. Oh well.
Then we met up with Sasha and had a pleasant hour and a half or so chatting. Rosemary was in her buggy for a bit at first, just looking around, then she came out for a long feed, for most of the rest of the time we were there, except 10 minutes or so near the end where she was just sitting on my lap looking around.
We then started doing a circuit of town, before Sasha realised she didn't have time to do a full circuit, or she'd be late picking her children up. So Rosemary and I just did a semi-circuit and headed home. She dropped off a bit during the walk home, but was awake before we got back.
We then spent a bit more time in the office and I managed to make a couple of work phone calls and catch up on the Internet, while feeding her. She dropped off a couple of times, again, but woke up within 30 seconds or so of dropping off. I realised that we were probably in a sleepless day, so we went down into the living room, so she could have more quality time - i.e. because we face each other and are at a similar level down there - with me. She was very awake and happy, chattering away and singing (I swear she actually sings along to songs now - albeit with single sounds, but still!).
Meanwhile Chris was blitzing the house - doing a big tidy up as a lot of things had piled up over the weekend because we'd been so busy. He was in and out to see us both. At one point he held her Rosemary so I could do some tidying (putting clean washing away) myself - I tried doing it while she lay in the middle of the bed (don't put her close to the edge anymore, as she's showing signs that she'll roll over soon), but she got upset almost immediately as she really needed proper interaction. But that's the only contribution we made!
Chris then settled in for the night shift (working), while I continued downstairs with Rosemary for a while. At about 8.30pm I felt that she was tiring, so we decamped to the bedroom (she'd got her bed clothes on at about 7.30pm), where the lights went down and the TV on (University Challenge) and she had a feed in the semi-dark. She fell asleep at about while feeding and I put her in her crib at 8.40pm and that was that, she was properly asleep. I do wonder if she might actually have gone down earlier if I'd tried it in the bedroom with the dimmed lights, but I think it's actually more that I'm learning to sense when she truly is ready for sleep.
I finished watching University Challenge to see if she would wake up, but she was clearly out for the count, so I got some food together and then went up to the office to do some work, myself. Chris or I came downstairs roughly every half hour (though sometimes more frequently) to check in on her - and she was always fine - and we could hear if she cried from upstairs. I would have preferred it if I had a proper monitor to listen to, though, and think I may invest in one, in case we have to do this again.
I worked until 2.30am, when I'd finished the parts of the work I was supposed to be doing (or, at least, the bits I could do at that point). I'd had a shower at about 10pm, so that I'd be clean for Tuesday morning and also to wake me up as I was starting to flag by that point. Rosemary hadn't woken up all that time. I expected her to wake up any second after my coming to bed, but actually didn't wake up until 4am, so that was about 7 and a half hours' straight sleep. I think it's possible that she would have gone straight back to sleep, even then, but I was there and picked her up and fed her for about 10 minutes, then she went back to sleep until about 7.45 am.
Part of me wonders if this was the start of a sleeping through the night routine, or whether it was just because she had a sleepless day and had a bad cold. I also wonder whether she slept for so long because we weren't in the room to wake her with our tossings and turnings and snuffles and snoring and so on. Who knows. I guess we'll see what happens on Tuesday.
Happy Quarter Year Birthday, Rosemary
Sunday was a very sleepy day, probably because Rosemary caught my cold. She woke up very snuffly at 5.45am and I brought her upstairs so she could sleep in her chair. She had a quick 15-minute feed then went back to sleep until 9.45am, so almost another 4 hours.
She then had a nappy change and got into her day clothes, followed by a good long feed and a chatter in her chair. We then went out and about, as we hadn't been out for a couple of days, which isn't very good. I try to make sure she goes out at least once a day, even if it's just a quick walk down to the Co-op, though preferably something longer than that. We went to the Co-op and then up to see her Granddad for a bit. She fell asleep on the way there, but woke up the minute we got in his front door!
(I weighed myself while there and shouldn't really have done so as I had far too much chocolate cake this week - well, it was my birthday! - and had actually jumped up a bit in weight. Will leave off any weighing for a few weeks again, I think!)
After seeing Granddad, we walked down to meet Eva off the bus and then walked with her to Tesco. We got a bunch of shopping there. Mainly went there to get a snot sucker which I'd been told are sold in Tesco, but not in our Tesco, apparently. Will see if I can get one in Boots tomorrow and hope she doesn't need it tonight. Rosemary had fallen asleep almost as soon as we left Papa's building and she stayed asleep until we got home, though she did open her eyes a couple of times, which cheered Eva up.
She woke up as soon as we got in, though. Changed her nappy as it smelt like she'd done a poop, but it was just a smelly fart! And she chattered a bit with her Auntie Eva, which was nice. Then went and fed her on the sofa, before Eva went to meet up with Papa before heading home.
We went and joined Chris up in the office then and Rosemary fell asleep soon after then, at about 4.30pm. She then slept until 7.30pm, giving me the opportunity to get lots of work done, which was fortunate as I'd spent the whole time she was asleep in the morning uploading photos and videos and so on, instead of working as I should have been really. (Though I'm sure you all appreciated it!)
She then had a good long feed, followed by some chatting and singing in her chair with both of us. Then she got changed into her night clothes (still no poop - not that this is anything to worry about, just that I imagine it will be incredibly explosive when it does arrive!) and had a good wriggle on her mat first. She had a little mirror time with her dad (where she was looking at it his reflection in the mirror while he held her up to it and talked to her) and then some more time in her chair upstairs.
Since we needed to keep working, ideally, and because of her cold which seemed particularly bad when she was lying flat, we decided to see if she would sleep in her chair, at least for the first hour or two of the night, so that she could breathe more easily. She went off to sleep at about 10.30pm and slept there until 2am.
I actually went down to bed at 1am myself and left her sleeping upstairs with Chris, so I spent a whole hour asleep in a different room to her, and managed it. Chris changed her nappy and then brought her in to me when she woke up. She had a good feed, but was then wide awake and wanting to play. I think this may have been down to her waking up in a light room and then moving down to the bedroom. I expect that confused her. She did go back to sleep at 3.45 am, however, and slept until 7.45am, when she woke uo really full of snot, poor thing.
I don't think we'll put her to sleep up in the office at night again, as I think it's too confusing for her. She's got to a point where she settles really well in her crib at around 10pm every night and has two good chunks of sleep. Really don't want to mess with such an achievement!
