Barren Mare

Little glens

Having traversed to the other end of the valley of terrible tantrums, we now seem to be encamped in the glen of two lesser irritations. Like everything with Botany, some days are worse than others but on the whole I find both of these issues are making me grind my teeth- a lot.

The first is her habit for seemingly selective deafness. It doesn't matter what I say, she just completely ignores me. "Botany," I ask "would you like some juice?"  Silence. She is engrossed in sliding a plastic tray across the floor. "Botany, are you thirsty? It's been a long time since you had anything to drink," I say. No reply. I give up and go off to do something else, like hang up the laundry or chop onions for the stew or stick needles under my fingernails. Five minutes later, or as soon as I am tied up in whatever I am doing, she runs though. "Mummy, Mummy, I'm so thirsty, I want juice please!".

We can repeat this little cycle about twenty five time a day. It doesn't matter what I am saying or offering ("Botany, would you like a pure white Arabian pony for your birthday? A trip to Disneyland? Let's watch your favourite movie. Let's go look at monkeys at the pet store!)"- I get nothing by way of acknowledgement. It's like she's on another planet, in her own wee world. The only thing that seems to get her attention is for me to bend down and get right.in.her.face. and even then I am not guaranteed of a response. Happily, it's not all the time- Botany is often engaged and engaging, attentive and affectionate and listens to instructions when asked to do something. But when she is in her tuned-out mode, it get really gets on my nerves.

 The other problem sounds nice (at least parts of it), in theory. In fact, if you were to rewind the clock to a year and a half ago, I probably would have fallen on the floor laughing that this could ever become an issue.

 Botany doesn't like to get out bed too early in the morning. Over the last couple of months, she has developed what I could call a firm appreciation for the delights of being cosy and cuddly under the duvet on a cold winter morning. In an ideal world, she would sleep until 8.15 or later- sometimes as late as 9.30. And this would be absolutely delightful beyond all my wildest dreams for the Child Who Will Not Sleep- except that 4 days of the week, we have to get up, get dressed and get to work/nursery preferably before noon.

The problem is, if roused too vigorously, Botany is a complete crankpot and will launch into an immediate volley of rather vocal protest. She will refuse to get up, refuse to put her clothes on and getting her out the door becomes a major pitched battle. Our policy is that once a tantrum of any kind starts, we try to jujitsu it in the same consistent manner- that is, she is left on her own (in her room or wherever) to pull herself together. But it makes it difficult is when she's already IN her room, and if left alone will simply crawl back into bed and pull the covers over her head. Meanwhile the clock is ticking and I am beginning to be late for work. I start to wonder if maybe I should have just let her sleep a bit longer, since we'd still be equally late but better rested.

So on mornings when she is reluctant to rise, shine and shimmy, it becomes a tricky and somewhat delicate process easing her from bed into clothes, negotiate whether some form of breakfast should be attempted and try to get ourselves out the door without either one of us bursting into tears. And all the while I have one eye on my watch and the voice of the White Rabbit on a loop in my head "I'm lateI'mlateI'mlate for a very important date." 

The solution to this problem is probably to try to get her into bed a little bit earlier.  As it is, we get her jammies on/teeth brushed/potty duties completed by about 7.30pm and stories read/lights out by 8.15pm at the very latest. But despite my best efforts, this is not always entirely successful. Depending on her mood, even without having had much or any nap during the day, Botany can easily stay awake for another half hour to 45 minutes after I give her that last kiss goodnight. Sometimes- despite stern admonitions, she pops out of her room needing something (invariably a poo that she couldn't summon up during pre-bedtime potty.) And on other occasions, while she goes to sleep in a fairly timely fashion, she's up in the night doing lord knows what. Sometimes she comes down the hall at 2am and knocks politely on our bedroom door. Lately she's been worried about the creepy shadows on the wall, the book she left at Daddy's, or she is needing a big drink of water. Even if settled fairly sharpish, she can stay awake for two hours, yammering away to herself or looking at stories- and then the dreaded wake up call of morning. Argggh.

I probably stay up too late myself these days. Over the New Year, I became quite engrossed in a new hobby- I'm not going to get into the details of it just now as I feel vaguely puzzled and slightly silly at why it interests me so- but I can tell you that a majority of it can be facilitated/conducted over the internet, which always suits me. And whilst an element of it involves lots of happy banter on various online forums, pleasingly for me, it does not pertain to the best way to inject oneself in the stomach with a medipen or comparing notes on whether it looks like there might actually be a second blue line on the pregnancy test.

What I discovered though is that really, I don't have any time for a hobby, of any sort. Really, I really really really don't. And this frustrates and perturbs me in turn, so like a rebellious child I stay up far past bedtime staring at a computer screen then wake up in the morning for work feeling like crap to the power of ten. Then I am am all the more grumpy that Botany is grumpy. Not a good mix.

I suppose if I am to have a hobby, it should relate to some form of exercise. I helped Knox move an old chest of drawers down three flights of stairs last weekend and was puffing when we got to the bottom. He looked at me wheezing and said, not all that kindly, "You're so unfit". He's right, I admit it- and I worry about it- but as it is, I can't see any spare time in my day, ever, to squeeze in a work out. I tried walking to work once a week for awhile there even after the big freeze, but we're running so late in the morning as it is these days, I simply can't spare the extra hour it takes for there and back.

They say that fidgeting burns a lot of extra calories, and that's certainly something I can do at my desk all day, but I'm wondering if my colleagues would mind if I installed a treadmill at my work station. I feel like I'm on one much of the time as it is.

Papillion

In the last couple of weeks I’ve ricocheted from one family drama into the next. Things with my folks calmed down to a degree, or at least as long as we played "dead elephant in the living room". But all became inflamed again when Knox decided he wasn’t up for now pretending everything was hunky-dory around the extended family dinner table- and he vented his feelings directly whereupon a small nuclear explosion erupted and now there is a little smoldering stump where my mother’s head used to be. I suppose on the upside nobody is quite so angry just at me- which is nice, because the black sheep quadrant of the field can be a lonesome place.

 

In the middle of all this sturm and drang, E. took Botany away for five nights on holiday. I had initially resisted this- the mere thought of so many days without my baaaaayyybee inspired choking panic and a sense that my spleen was being removed. I finally reluctantly agreed on the basis that I realised (with my head, if not my heart) that it would give me an opportunity to finally attend to some of the things that I had been postponing more or less for the last two years (clearing out loft, changing bank account, buying mini vac thing to clean out car).  Before they were about to leave, I came down with a vile, stinking summer cold which settled in my sinuses, causing general exhaustion and day after day of misery. Unable to sleep at night due to the blockage in my nose, I staggered through the days prior to her departure until I reached the point where I was counting down the hours until he came to pick her up so that I could finally take a decongestant and go sleep for a week. 

 

She left, clutching her little purple suitcase and a stuffed bunny, waving bye-bye. I had a nap and then woke up feeling utterly, completely depressed. For two days I sneezed, spluttered and lay in an exhausted heap around the house, totally unable to relax or enjoy myself or do much of anything. I called in sick to work for the first time in three years. I wandered repeatedly into Botany’s room, telling myself that I should make the most of finally having some extended time off to myself- and then wanting to burst into tears. The blackness of mood began to feel all consuming and frightening. I was on the verge of making a doctor’s appointment and then decided I would wait until some of the fatigue and cold symptoms subsided.  I went to bed early and slept, slept, slept.

 

On the third day I woke up, the sun was shining and the block of ice in my chest started to dissolve a little. I opened all the windows in the house and took down the blackout in Botany’s room, then cleaned everything. I sorted out clothes and put stuff away that had been cluttering the house. I trawled the summer sales in town one afternoon, finally spending some of the wedding vouchers we had been hoarding for nearly a year. I bought the mini vac and filled it with crumbs from the car. Knox and I drank wine and ate dinner in the garden together in the lovely evening sun. One night we went out shopping, late, at the store shaped like a giant blue box on the outskirts on town and bought stuff for the business which we then spent the next evening putting together. It was freeing, not to have to be at home by any particular time. I went out at midnight to take a photograph of the business frontage.

 

I started to relax and I slept, slept, slept some more.   

 

By the time Botany came home, I felt quite restored to my old self. Which was good- because she returned in fairly foul temper and with some sort of bug that caused both smelly poo for two days as well as a bout of vomiting. She was not at all pleased to return the old routine at nursery and, being out of sorts most of her first day back, bit one of the other children. That night at home, she smirked when reprimanded, refused to put on her pyjamas and was generally being a rude and stroppy little madam. Sending her to bed without a story provoked an awe-inspiring howling incident, culminating in her trying to escape the dreaded bars on to the chest of drawers at the end of the cot. Knox’s mother, unable to resist going in during the tantrum, found her wailing and dangling her sweaty little body perilously off the side. Aggravated as I was, I still had to give the kid points for sheer determination- not that I’m telling her that.  

 

After a suitable interval of a week, I took one of the bars off the cot, turning it into a day bed for the time being.  The chest of drawers is easy enough to move but it’s really only a matter of time until she would try to vault the bars themselves. I had been thinking it was about time anyway- she will be three next month and my aim is to continue to do things to foster an age-appropriate sense of independence. Botany was delighted- she actually grabbed the allan key and turned the screws herself with very little assistance. I sat watching her, remembering how almost exactly three years ago I put the cot together, my body unwieldy with advanced pregnancy, wilting in the heat. 

 

Time goes by, bittersweet and relentless.    

 

 

 

Sun signs

We changed the clocks back on Sunday, and already it feels like a sudden plummet into winter. The dark, it makes me sleepy. And cold. Already I feel the urge to huddle around the radiator for warmth (since my fireplace probably doesn't function and is blocked off with a really ugly tile which I painted over immediately upon moving in.)  Botany's grandmother keeps knitting these funny hats for her; the designs are sweet but are about six sizes too big. I'm wearing one now, plunked on top of my head in my chilly study.  

Thanks to a dedicated approach to bedtime scheduling, we survived the time change transition with almost no problems whatsoever. I just kept pushing Botany's sleepytime fifteen minutes later each night and on Saturday managed to keep her up until 9pm. That was the worst of it, actually- she had woken up at 6am, had a one hour nap and it felt like the day was just.never.going.to.end. It was worth it though when she slept in until 7am on the new timetable. 

I may have mentioned this here, briefly, or elsewhere but the gadget which has helped enormously with  our sleep battles is the Gro-Clock. Oh, it is a thing of fabulousness. I'm not sure you can easily acquire them in the States or Canada, but if you can get your hands on one, I highly recommend it.* Basically, it's a jazzier version of what I was proposing to do with the blue light on a timer; that is, teach Botany that when the light comes on, I will come in. It has sun image settings and moon image settings; all you do is switch to the night time setting at bedtime and the sun does this little sleepy wink, goes away and a blue half moon (and countdown stars) come out. In the morning, at the pre-set time of your choosing, the sun automatically comes back up. It was relatively simple to convey the concept to Botany, but for added assistance, the clock comes with a small board book with a cute story about a sleepy pig. 

I gave it to Botany for her second birthday, and it took a couple of weeks before she seemed to fully understand. The key, it seemed, was to be completely consistent about not going in to get her until the sun came up on the clock. Initially, in order to avoid a long hideous early morning crying session, it meant choosing an appropriately early wake up time so that she didn't have to lie there for ages, awake and waiting for me to come in. Gradually, I started setting the timer a bit later and now she quite often just sleeps through the wake-up sun changeover.   

I won't pretend it's a magic wand; there are still the odd occasions where she might wake up, either in the middle of the night or very early in the morning. On the whole, we've noticed a huge difference. Sometimes I hear her stirring in the crack of dawn and I still hold my breath. Sometimes I think she's probably awake and reading a book in her cot (or perhaps doing the crossword). But she usually stays quiet and often it does seem like she goes back to sleep and ultimately, I don't really mind what she does in there, as long as I don't have to go in to start the day before 6am.  

The other thing which doesn't seem to have made all that much difference is that we have finally done away with the morning nursing session once and for all. It took about two weeks, with the odd relapse, to break the habit- and in the end, I was convinced that habit was all that it was. Part of my decision to persist with the early morning weaning was, admittedly, down to the ongoing difference of opinion between Knox and myself on the subject and my secret and somewhat childish desire to demonstrate that Botany's early waking had nothing to do with boobs and that I was right, right, right. But I stress that I wouldn't have done it unless I felt like the end consequence- that is, that she would effectively be more or less totally weaned as a result- was the right way to go at this point. And you know, I did feel that way. 

There was one morning when we sat together for ages and she would not let go and basically gnawed on me, while attempting endless spare nipple twiddling (a quirk that I used to tolerate but which was gradually starting to make me want to climb out of my freaking skin). It had none of the pleasure and sweetness that our bedtime nursing still has. And I thought to myself- "I am starting to detest this, and we're going to be late for work/nursery again, and I am done."

 She kicked up a fuss for awhile, that is, until she discovered the alternate joys of back rubbing ("Fingernails, Mummy! Use fingernails!") and in the end, it was so much easier than I had anticipated.

So, we're really down to one nursing session just before bedtime. With varying degrees of tolerance, Botany will allow other people, including Knox, to put her to bed if I need or want to be elsewhere, so I see no overwhelming reason to stop until she's more ready. Some nights, she doesn't even ask, so I am pretty sure we will get there before too long.    

*The only criticism I would make about the clock is that the back lighting is adjustable but when even when it is on on the dimmest setting, it can seem quite bright in a dark room. This worried me initially, that Botany would be awakened but it doesn't seem to be causing a problem, especially as it's more of an ambient sort of light and I have the clock positioned such that her head is still lying in shadow. Oh, and if they could come up with a remote control to change the pre-set times without having to go in, that would be absolute genius. 

Whoosh

Holy crap, I am getting married on Saturday. S-a-t-u-r-day, as in two days from now, only it is already nine pm here by now, so slightly less than that. Saturday! 

There are many and varied things to freak out about , but instead I am taking the excellent advice of my wise friend L. We had lunch at the end of last week and she took one look at my slightly panicked and wide-eyed expression before immediately prescribing two glasses of wine every night, to be taken with a repeated "zen whooshing motion" made about the neck and face. And you know what, it's kind of working! Never mind that the window works were only finally finished today about an hour before I had to collect Botany and the whole place smells like paint and I jammed my finger trying to shut the top pane. Never mind that I keep receiving these random emails from the venue with questions that really should have been answered about a month ago. Oh and never mind that my mother and Knox's mother have fallen out very badly, like the aftermath of a small nuclear explosion, which should make for a lovely current of thinly disguised tension on the day and well...for the rest of our lives, apparently. 

Zen whooshing motion. Wine. Repeat.

Knox and I generally get along extremely well considering the large level of stress we often consume on a daily/weekly basis. The one thing we quite regularly disagree about is Botany and certain aspects of her upbringing. The early morning wakings continue to be a source of friction; he is adamant that the reason she wakes up at the crack of dawn is because she wants me and more specifically, my boobs. I remain slightly sceptical about this; my view is that she usually wakes up because she can only sleep ten hours at any given stretch, and at that point, she's just done with sleeping. If she was so tired the night before that she went to bed at 7.30, we're doomed. 

Having agreed we needed some hard data on the matter, we kept a sleep chart for over a month, mapping wake up times and nap times and go-to-sleep times. What it indicated was a wake-up time varying from between 5.30 am to 6.30, but on average 10 hours a night and that Botany is in fact in the normal amounts of sleep ranges for a child of her age. 

What it didn't show is that some mornings she wakes up and chats to herself quite happily for 15 minutes before calling me. Or that some mornings, she actually didn't ask to nurse at all, and I managed to get her out the door to nursery before she remembered it was something that she wants. Or that if Knox is here and gets up with her, she's quite happy to accept that Mummy is still sleeping and to leave me in peace until I drag my carcass out of bed an hour later. All of which to my mind somewhat disproves the "she wants boob, hence wakes up" theory. But Knox is hard to convince on the subject- he thinks that even if she gets it later on in the morning, it's an incentive to wake up. I'm trying to take his opinion into account but the only way to test his theory is to proceed to full scale weaning and frankly, that is sooo not something I wanted to tackle before the wedding. The issue has dragged on and invariably we end up hissing at each about it at 5.30 in the morning when we hear Botany stirring.

I did have one other major realisation as I studied the chart data. There is a myth (largely perpetuated by my parents) that Botany "requires less sleep than I do". What dawned on me is that this is quite untrue. The reality is that to be at my absolute best, I would ideally have roughly the same amount of sleep as Botany. Of course, unless I go to bed at the same time as she does, that obviously isn't going to happen. 

The wedding shoes are called "Jasmine" and I bought them at Topshop, for those who were wondering. They also come in a rather fetching red colour, though mine are a kind of strange steel grey-blue. Of course, the problem with getting anything from that store is that they change their stock about every thirty seconds (so we can all stay "bang on trend!")

By the time I post next, I will (hopefully) be in a state of married bliss; we're headed to Paris for a quick honeymoon but not until next weekend, so if at all possible I will bring you an update of sorts as to how the day went. And if she'll deign to hold still for more than ten seconds, a picture of Botany in her dress (at least, from the back).  

Leap forward, stumble back

Well, of course it didn't last. I has somehow suspected Botany's delightfully self-sufficient new sleep routine was probably going to turn out to be a relatively short-lived fluke. And I was right. A night or two after that last post (and indeed, the same night I somewhat smugly demonstrated the new bedtime routine to E.), Botany started howling about 15 minutes after going into her cot.  The first time, she sounded so distressed that I went in right away, which I wouldn't normally do. She was standing up, wild-eyed and looking very upset.

When I asked her what was wrong, she said, "Scared."

I was a bit taken aback. Firstly, that was not a word that I knew to be in her vocabulary and secondly, not an emotion that I thought she be able to articulate at this age.

"What are you scared of, darling?" I asked her, and she shyly named one of her plastic bath toys. For reasons which merit a whole other post, she has hitherto been obsessed with a collection of these particular toys, to the point of needing to have them on hand all the time, including at night in the cot.

I was somewhat incredulous that this particular item, which was resting innocently at the foot of the mattress, would have in any way inspired fear, but it does have slightly buggy eyes and a freaky grin so I decided to respect that actually, it might be scary. So I removed the toy, gave Botany a cuddle and back down she went without any more complaining. Problem solved, I reckoned.

The only catch was that on each subsequent night thereafter, the scenario was repeated, only she was no longer able to identify anything that was bothering her. Worse still, she wouldn't go to sleep after one check-in, instead lapsing into a round of fresh, hysterical weeping a few minutes every time I left the room.  Well, duh, I realised. After the first night, I remained hesitant about going in at all, knowing we may be getting into a problematic pattern, but it worried me- a lot- that she might be lying there, feeling scared. I don't think she was deliberately manipulating me that first time, but after that experience, she obviously saw a chink in the bedtime armour.

So we reverted to more traditional bedtime soothing- cuddles and rocking and indeed, the boob, until she was placed in a drowsy stupour into the cot. It's nice in some ways, since I always enjoyed our bedtime nursing and felt a little sad that it might be on the way out. But mostly, I now just feel like a gigantic failure. Here I was secretly congratulating myself that Project De-boobing might not end up being this huge battle and suddenly I find that we're right back into the old familiar pattern, which is not the direction I particularly want to be heading.

I'm also experiencing various pressure on the weaning front which is probably contributing to a general overall sense of Fail, Fail, Fail. My parents arrive for the summer in a few weeks; my mother has made it no secret that she thinks it is high time that Botany came off the boob for good. I already feel as though I have to be apologetic about the fact that we are still in a nursing relationship. It's almost as if nursing was a highly unsuitable boyfriend, who my parents really disapprove of, but who I love so much even though ultimately I know we're not meant to be and he will leave me in the end.

To compound the issue, Knox is absolutely convinced the sole reason Botany wakes up at such an ungodly hour every morning is because she wants boob. I suspect he's probably right; that said, neither of us is that keen to go through the nightmare process of ruling out the morning boob as the main contributing factor. I'm also savvy enough at this stage to know that when it comes to kids with sleep issues, there are very few magic bullets. But it makes me feel like there is another voice added to the Wean!Wean!Wean! choir, and it's growing louder every day.

I try really hard not to pick out the undertones of "if you were a proper mother, you'd have this child's behaviour modified by now," because I don't think that's necessarily what is intended. But when I'm already feeling like a failure, it's very easy to hear discord in the orchestra.  

Even the larks are saying "you've gotta be kidding me".

Would you believe that in the end, I forgot to take the cursed cake to worK?  Well, actually, I remembered when I was halfway there in the car- at which Botany may have learned a new word or two.

The last post on tantruming creates a nice segue into what is seemingly my mostest favouritest topic- sleep.

May's comment raises an interesting question- is it not the case that Botany is tired, having woken up at 4.45 am and might this not be a contributing factor in the tantrum incidents?  Yes and no. On that particular day, we were up very early, but in classic Botany style, she wanted to go back to bed about 7.30 for some boob and sleepies, which we did. She slept, I did not. So when I say she was not especially tired, I am basing this on her just having had an hour of sleep to compensate for the early morning waking. I concur she may have still been a little tired. But it seems Botany is completely capable of pitching a fit no matter how much sleep she may or may not have had.  Often times she kicks off not long after she has actually woken up from a refreshing nap.

Still- 4.45 am- the root of all evil. You may recall that before we went on holiday, I was considering implementing Operation Blue Light. I figured there was no point until all the travel was completed, since body clocks were going to be wonky here anyway. Then when we got back, there was a hellish period where she wouldn't sleep at all, followed by a blissful spell where she regularly slept until almost 6.30am. It was during that lovely time that I began to hope that maybe we'd finally turned a corner. Then she started waking up again at all kinds of silly, early times- BUT- and here's the part that makes both Knox and I want to weep with frustration- she only seems to do it at the weekend or on the days when we could actually enjoy sleeping in until 6.30am.

Whoah. I just wrote "enjoy sleeping in until 6.30am". Somewhere, I think I hear my mother laughing.

It's especially hard for Knox because once he's been woken up in the morning, he has a really hard time going back to sleep. I'm usually able to drift off for some extra snoozing if I bring Botany into bed to nurse for anywhere from a half hour to an hour (or however long she desires) before she starts leaping up and down on my sternum. Knox invariably ends up lying there awake, waiting to get kicked in the ribs, before eventually dragging himself bleary eyed out of bed. During this morning's 4.45 am wake up call, he actually departed in a grump for the sofa, where he threw himself down to watch television in a sleep deprived stupor. All the more unfortunate given that for a change, Botany went straight back to sleep right after I brought her into bed with me and slept like a log until 8am.  

What drives me particularly crackers is that when she does want to bound out of bed at 5am or whenever for the day, she is invariably tired a couple of hours later, and ready for a morning nap. On the days when she manages to sleep until 6am or later, she's OK to last the morning without additional sleep. Which tells me she probably really does need that extra hour of sleep. 

Interestingly, at the same time, the whole bedtime routine has changed. It used to be that we would do bath, jammies, brush teeth, read stories in the rocker chair and then she would nurse to almost sleep before I put her down in the cot around 7.30. But a couple of weeks ago, she simply would not fall asleep (even though she was clearly pretty tired). I decided that come half past seven, she was going into the cot no matter what. So I started just putting her down awake. And what I discovered is that she would go quietly, and even though awake when I left her, would fall asleep on her own.

Since then, we've progressed to her actually asking to go into the cot around 7.30 (usually after 10 minutes of nursing). I put her down, give her a kiss, shut the curtains and make sure she has all her favourite toys, her sippy cup of water, and a book. She says "night night mummy, see tomorrow morning" and waves. Sometimes we blow kisses as I leave the room. And then she will read or chat quietly to herself or the toys in the cot for up to half an hour before falling asleep. Tonight she requested asked to go to bed without any nursing at all. 

I'm frankly still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor about it all, but it's really, really great. Unfortunately, the slightly later bedtime doesn't guarantee a later wake up time, particularly at the weekend for reasons we are unable to ascertain. Can I also point out that I've attempted the Weissbluth formula of earlier bedtime repeatedly and trust me, it really does not work for Botany.) I do wish that she could apply some of the same methods of entertaining herself quietly in the cot for awhile before she gets up- but what I have learned is that clearly, she has that capacity and maybe just needs us to reinforce that message.

To do that, I may need to get started on Operation Blue Light. Amusingly, though, we've lost the instruction booklet for the timer gadget supplied by Knox. I was envisaging some little simple mechanism plugged in at the socket, but this thing is complicated enough that I reckon that secretly it is capable of doing our taxes, monitoring our heart rates and mumuring subliminal messages. Sleeeep, Botany, sleeeeep.      

 

      

 

 

Import duties

I'm sorry for the longish silence; the days of our trip flew past and then it was time to head back. They say the relaxing effects of a holiday wears off within 24 hours of returning home. In this case, I'd estimate it to be something more like 2 hours, 14 minutes and 36 seconds.

We flew across the water from Florida last Friday; unfortunately the trip home was so long and sleep-deprived for all of us that, together with the consequences of jet lag and daylight savings time, it has taken until today to resume some semblance of a normal routine around here.

Before we left, I blithely reassured Knox that the trip home would probably be easier than coming over, because Botany would sleep most of the way. Oh, how the sleep gods smite the smug. On the day of departure, Botany (who up until then had taken to sleeping in until 6am most days) treated us all to a 4.30 am wake up call. Unable to nap very well, she was a grizzly, grumpy mess most of the day. The five hour layover in Newark airport was particularly fun. If you were passing through and spotted a couple taking turns carrying a child up and down the bank of pay phones so she could push all the buttons, for about three hours, that was us.

Knox and I hung on for grim death; by the time we boarded our flight for the last leg back to Scotland, it was just past her bedtime and she was in meltdown. We wrestled her into her jammies and sleeping bag and I produced the inflatable nursing cushion and my best boob. As we took off, she fell asleep. And then, wouldn't you know it, after about an hour they turn on all the lights, serve dinner and generally make about 50 announcements over the PA system, thus waking up the baby (who I had stupidly presumed would sleep through all of that).  She didn't go back to sleep until 1am. Mind you, once she got finished with climbing up and down all over the seat and our laps, she did sit quietly leafing through the in flight magazine in the dark for about an hour while Knox kept an eye on her. I was falling asleep at the wheel tired.

Upon arrival, Botany treated the immigration officials, not to mention the rest of our fellow passengers with a meltdown so spectacular they let us jump the queue. Thank you, kind sirs, we appreciate it.

Since then, it has been a long slog to try to get her back on a normal sleep pattern. Coupled with the kind of uber-clinginess during the day not seen since she was about a year old, for some reason, despite being very tired, she had some sort of nasty regression- for the first couple of nights we experienced the sort of howling for hours on end if left alone in her cot that marked my last encounter with sleep training. Bedtime has now gotten a little easier (although she still stands up and whimpers briefly when I put her down and leave her- oh, how it tears me up when she does it) but naptimes are shot to hell. I can only hope that once she is back at nursery she'll remember how to go to sleep during the day on her own.

Bless her little heart, I'm trying to be patient but everything seems to be such a huge battle right now. Suddenly, my sweet baby has become this wildcat hell beast. She won't have her clothes put on and she won't let me change her nappy without a huge thrashing screaming mess. I can't pee or make dinner or otherwise leave the room for more than two seconds without her calling frantically for me. Everyone else is pushed away with angry little fists. Knox, who thought he had done some good bonding with her over the holiday, is feeling just a little rejected and disappointed. I know it will pass, probably quite soon. But I'm essentially feeling like a frazzled mess and absolutely dreading trying to get her ready for nursery and out the door tomorrow without having my eardrums pierced.

On the bright side, Botany has learned all sorts of interesting new words and phrases that I am sure will come in very handy in day-to-day Scottish life, such as manatee and turtle, along with "go fast! big bump! see boat! sit car! sit buggy! open door! push button!". I reckon with her penchant for speed and marine life, she's destined to be either a race car driver or a marine biologist; or possibly both. That's my girl.

Trip the light fantastic

You know, I never realised just how many hippos appear in children's books until Botany became completely hippopotamus obsessed. She has a small stuffed hippo which we took along to the zoo one day last week. When she clapped eyes on the live pygmy hippo, you could practically see the synapses firing off in all directions in her brain as she made the connection between the two. There was a lot of pointing to the pygmy hippo and back to the stuffed toy, shouting "HIPPO HIPPO". She then refused to be moved from the hippo enclosure for, oh, approximately nine hours, even when the keeper came out and started cleaning the wallow pit which entailed the spraying of a great deal of water in our general direction, not to mention some unspeakable goo. Upon our return home there was a sudden intense interest in any books or pictures referencing hippos...and I say, there are surprisingly many in our collection.   

Anyway, having just finished moaning about Botany's ongoing sleep issues, she has flummoxed me this past week by waking up at 6.15 am three days running. Then this morning, the alarm actually got me up at 6.30, enabling me to get dressed and start my slapdash wash-and- makeup routine before she stirred. It was fabulous. Delighted as I am, I predict it won't last. I have this vague theory that it has something to do with my pushing the one nap a day regimen, a pattern which was today resoundingly broken by the nursery staff when despite my request, they let her sleep for nearly two hours, starting at 9am, followed by a shorter afternoon snooze. Argh.

Should the early waking hell resume, I am resolved that I will try the light-on-a-timer method. However, I've decided to wait until the end of March for several reasons.

Firstly, on Monday, Botany, Knox and I are boarding a plane to travel to Florida to visit my parents for a couple of weeks. I haven't mentioned this, have I?  No, I thought probably not. I'm very much looking forward to going. I haven't had anything resembling a vacation in a year. That might not normally be that big a deal, but it feels like it when the year in question was for the most part a complete ass kicker. I'm keenly anticipating some sun, the surf between my toes, building a sandcastle with Botany and a couple of nights of grown-up time away with Knox. 

Getting there, though. Ugh. The last time  we traveled to the States, Botany was an absolute angel, but she was a lot younger, more portable and far more easily entertained by, say, a packet of unopened peanuts in a foil wrapper. I've purchased her a seat of her own this time, as the thought of trying to contain her wiggly little body on our laps for the duration was essentially unthinkable, so there ought to be at least a bit of room for us to spread out some toys and books. I'm resigned to a lot of walking up and down the aisle if it comes to that; bearing in mind that the airline on which we are traveling on is notorious for turning on the dreaded "fasten seatbelt sign" and confining you to your veal crate for the duration.  

Anyway, her sleep is bound to be totally screwed up once we get there, and by the time we get over the jet lag, we will be due to come home. We don't start Daylight Savings Time here until the end of the month (in fact, three days after we get back). So the time differential will initially be less of a sharp shock, but a long adjustment over the whole piece, if you see what I mean. Basically, I predict it will suck serious ass for a bit and frankly I reckon there is no point screwing around with blue lights and timers until we are back on the beginnings of an even keel.     

Hippo hippo hippo.

Time to make the donuts!

Having mulled over the comments on the last post, I've reached some interesting conclusions. None of these ideas are exactly new. It seems like I've been waging one form of sleep battle or another since Botany was born, so I have given this a lot of thought already. But up until now, it was more like...partly-baked notions that I haven't bothered to finish formulating.

I think commenter Monica (hi Monica!) is absolutely right in several respects; firstly, that something probably needs to change, if only because I think things could be working better than the present situation. The trouble is that any change does require a certain amount of modification on both my part and Botany's. I do find it difficult to to be consistent, persistent and diligent when it involves both getting up early and getting out of the current comfort zone. However! Assuming that the nettle can be grasped, here's the other puzzle.

Forgive me in advance if what follows is all too "Behavioural Modification 101" but I'm trying to work it through in my own mind.

The second thing on which I think Monica is spot on about is that one of the reasons Botany wakes up so early is so that I will bring her into bed with me and nurse her. It's a basic behaviour-reward pattern. I don't think Botany is necessarily a lark by nature. Sure, occasionally, she gets up at the ungodly hour of 5.30 am, ready to party and and no matter what, will not be boobed back to sleep for the day. But what I observe, both from her willingness to nurse back down and from her nap patterns is that she actually does seem to require more sleep than a 5.30 am kick off allows. So really, the main reason she wakes up and calls for me is that she wants the company of Mummy's boobs. And by now, I reckon her body clock is actually primed to go off at that point- mine certainly is.

Now, the problem is of course how to fix all of this. Botany goes to bed by 7.30pm most nights and quite often sleeps straight through til 5.30ish. That's ten hours, which seems a reasonable amount of time. Under the present circumstances, I can't really shift her bedtime any later. I reckon that until I can establish with more certainty that she can, in fact, sleep on her own for longer than she presently does, then it seems a trifle unfair to pick a time beyond 5.30am and confine her to her cot until that time is reached. So rightly or wrongly, I've chosen 5.30am as the magic hour at which she should be able to get up if she really wants to. I know. Ugh.  

I could of course implement a form of cry it out to see if it would induce later wake ups. To be honest, there are times when I do this anyway- for example, when she kicks off at 4am and I am thinking nooooo way. But my concern is this: at her age, Botany has no way of knowing what time it is. She has no means by which to realise that the magic wake-up hour is reached. So I think it gets extremely confusing for her if sometimes when she cries, Mummy comes in after, say 30 minutes and other times, it's 5 minutes. My guess is that it's created a form of unwanted intermittent reinforcement for an early morning wake up and cry. Because, hey, sometimes it might be the lucky day when all you need is a 3 minute wail!

What occurred to me is this: the problem may not be the reward. In fact, having such a reward to offer could potentially work in my favour. What I need to do is introduce an intermediate step between the current behaviour (wake up, cry like banshee) and reward (boob). In other words, I need to teach Botany that it's not her crying for a certain length of time that will make me magically appear at her cotside, but that my appearance is triggered or connected to something else. I think that "the something else" should provide a visual clue to help her learn that an appropriate wake-up time has been reached.

Commenter Kristin (hi Kristin!) had the excellent suggestion of using a digital clock- when the number reads 7, it's time to get up. However, I'd agree that even though she is a smart cookie, Botany may be too young for this just yet. I've seen these,  which might be a possibility, although wea re not quite at the recommended 2 plus age range.  Trouble is, I am not sure if Botany would really be able to see it very well from the current position of her cot, so I am not sure where I would put the damn thing (other than perhaps in the cot itself?) I might be able to re-configure things a bit in her room but I don't know how effective that would be.

What I might try (and please dear Internets, if you think this is completely dumb, tell me) is to put a timer on the small blue light on the bedside table. The little lamp casts a very low key and pleasant glow. Initially I would set it for 5am. If she wakes up before that, I could leave her to gurn until the appointed hour. Then the light would come on, followed by my immediately coming in to get her. My goal would be to keep shifting the "light-on" time later and later. My hope would be that this would teach her that Mummy only comes in when the light comes on.

Or would this simply result in her crying on and on in hopes that this somehow turns on the light?  In which case, I am no further forward. I have this theory that it would take awhile but presumably there may be times when the light comes on even when she is not in cry mode. That may eventually clue in her that the light is not necessarily related to her wailing.  

The other alternative is, of course, to do nothing other than what I am already doing, knowing that eventually she will grow out of it and that one day it will take my running a jackhammer by the side of her bed to rouse her. Ah, what a blissful notion.

From sleeps to sleep

In case you are wondering, I haven't fallen down a groundhog hole or any similar fate. It's simply the perennial, unsolvable problem of not enough hours in the day. Add to that the drudgery of the long Scottish winter, and it's enough to knock the blogging motivation out of the best of us. I want to hibernate, under a pile of the warmest blankets, and sleep until spring. That said, it does seem like we are beginning the slow tipping toward the longer days, with the first signs of snowdrops making an appearance. And that does lift the spirits considerably.

Speaking of low slow changes and bed covers, Botany is presently working on the awkward transition from two naps a day to one. It's a complete pain in the ass. At eighteen months, most of the children in her peer group have long since bid farewell to the morning nap; but then again, most of those kids also allegedly sleep happily in their cots until 6.30 or 7 am. With Botany, the formula seems to run something like this. She wakes up at 5.30 and I fetch her into bed with me. If she goes back to sleep, as she frequently does, until 7-7.30 am, then she is pretty much able to make it through to lunchtime without a morning nap (although it gets a bit dicey sometimes around about 11.30 or so). If she wakes up before 7 am, as she also frequently does, then she seems to really struggle to get to the midday sleep.

The problem is, if she has a morning nap any later than, say, 8am, it does seem to really screw up the afternoon nap. Plus she tends to sleep for too long in the morning slot, and then the afternoon nap lasts approximately 14 minutes and 46 seconds, thus rendering the rest of the day a bit of minefield as to mood swings, tantrums and wanting to doze off at 5pm. Misery.  

I'm probably not helping matters in that I usually acquiesce to her morning requests to climb back into bed with mummy for boob, as long as this is before 9am. It's hard to say no, given that on these occasions, I've been up with her since as early as 5am and the lure of the pillows and a warm baby is sooo hard to resist. The alternative is to try to keep a grumpy fractious toddler amused until at least noon. I tend not to take her out on those mornings, since she'll almost certainly fall asleep in the stroller or car way too early and then the whole afternoon sleep schedule is buggered.  But it does make me want to climb the walls, trying to keep her up all morning while stuck in the house.

I think the nursery are also complicit in the problem since she invariably has a morning nap on the days she is with them. Again, it's hard to criticise since we get up about 6.15 am on work days and I gather she gets so weary that she actually asks to be put down for a sleep there, too. In a few months from now, she'll be transferred into the next room up in terms of age, as she is now one of the oldest kids in the baby room. I can just imagine that the staff are quite keen to get all the little 'uns stashed away for a morning sleep too, and not have Botany tearing around on the room on her own, gurning and grizzling and practicing her favourite word "no, no, no".

I reckon we'll get there eventually but like most things in parenting.idently it's going to take more fine-tuning and patience than I had originally anticipated. Ultimately, the issue of naps at nursery will be decided for her since once she moves up to the next room, it's a one nap schedule there and I expect she'll adapt. Maybe by that point she'll be hardy enough to withstand the slog of a long morning without a retreat back to bed.

I, other hand, am wondering how I'll survive it; I'll miss the morning nap terribly. It was always a bright spot of consolation to me on the days I hauled my weary ass out of bed at 5.30 am. I suppose will be nice to have a clear chunk of hours in the morning to go out and do things without building a nap into the equation, and I suspect it will also mean her afternoon nap is a little longer and easier to attain. What I am coming to learn, slowly, is that in order to function at the optimum level with these catch up sleep opportunities, I really need to make an effort to get to bed myself earlier, ideally by at least 10pm. But that equates to even less hours in the day...and so it goes.