Lily’s ‘big bed’

Over the last few weeks Lily has decided to try sleeping in her own bed.

Your reaction to that last sentence will probably depend on what you think of co-sleeping. Some people, for example, will be thinking, “It’s about bloody time!” For them Lily has been ‘too old’ to share our bed for quite some time. In fact, for many it was always a bit of a suspect thing for us to do.

In contrast, my reaction was fairly mixed. It was one of pride, of excitement and, in all honesty, of deep sadness.

I loved sharing our bed with Lily. From the moment we brought her home my instinct to physically comfort her at night was overpowering. My sleepiness dulled the shock of all the changes that this new life involved and I found that I could just nurture (and feed) her without thought. Sharing the bed with her Papa also meant that they got to bond quickly despite his full time job.

As time went on Lily began to snuggle us back. The warm feeling of her little arms wrapped around me and the rhythm of her breath would often lull me back to sleep when I woke during the night.

These last few weeks I have missed her little body next to mine, but I am also enjoying her pride in claiming her own space and we’re still finding time for plenty of cuddles – especially when she creeps back in during the night.

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Do you have a co-sleeping story to share? Perhaps you'd like to enter it into the Co-Sleeping Essay Contest? See Blue Milk from more info.

Night weaning

So I night-weaned Lily.

She was feeding every hour or so and I was feeling utterly exhausted and so I decided that things just had to change. The weird thing is that it really wasn't a terrible experience. She did wake up a lot on the first night and she did tearfully ask for milk, but she also settled very quickly in my arms and went back to sleep once I rocked her and sang to her. What seemed to matter was that she could chose the song.

The second night was a little harder - only in that she was awake from 12:00-2:30am. She wasn't crying or upset for most of that time mind you. She was mostly trying to go to sleep, but she was finding it really difficult and kept asking me to sing "Hush Little Baby" over and over and over again. I thought that my voice was going to give out and every time she asked I kept thinking "this is the last time that I'll physically be able to sing, after that I am going to have to do something else." But the strange thing was that each and every time I found that I was able to sing and then, finally, she was able to go to sleep.

On the third night she woke at 2am and 4am. She did ask for milk, but quickly changed her mind and asked for a "mama cuddle" when I reminded her that there was "no milk until the morning". Both times she was awake for a total of about 2 minutes. She didn't need me to rock her or even sing. It was amazing.

The next few nights were pretty much the same - 2am and 4am, asked for milk, settled quickly for a cuddle and then back to sleep.

Last night was night eleven and for the last few nights she has either slept through or woken only once and gone back to sleep without anything more than a stroke of the head or a side-by-side snuggle. She isn't waking up desperate for milk in the morning either. She seems quite happy to chat about other things first and then will say (calmly) "other side" as though she is just continuing her evening feed with no interruption.

I am just so proud of her.

Sadly I must admit that I am not feeling any better for this shockingly successful process. If anything I feel worse.

I am not sure why this is. I think that part of it is because my body is using the extra sleep to tell me just how exhausted I am and to have a little bit of a collapse on me. Another part of it may be that Lily has picked up several more feeds during the day to make up for the ones that she is missing out on at night (AKA she is feeding constantly) and so I am feel quite drained and a little suffocated. For this part I found this Kellymom article quite helpful. I also just ordered myself a copy of "Mothering your nursing toddler".

Now I think that I need to get a bit more creative about the snacks that I offer Lily during the day in order to encourage her to eat a little bit more food. I am going to try Dr Sear's nibble tray idea, but I may need to expand my repertoire a little.

Any suggestions?

Feeding all night

A couple of weeks ago I thought that I was ready to do something about Lily's sleeping. You see she wakes up a lot - often every hour - and wants to feed back to sleep. She also doesn't like sleep by herself in the evenings, meaning that I generally go to bed when she does (or shortly afterwards).

Now I am quite aware that she does not need to feed every hour. And I am acutely aware that my sleep would be drastically improved if, in fact, she didn't. But the thing is that as I approached the first few nights when I was planning to apply Elizabeth Pantley's techniques to encourage her to feed less and sleep more, I realised that I really wasn't ready.

[I should say that I do apply some of Pantley's techniques. Lily has a fairly consistent bedtime and routine, a good naptime schedule, and a blankie. However, it has become clear that we will have to take more drastic action in order to slow down the nighttime feeding (or get her to go down to bed by herself) and it is this more drastic action that I don't have the inclination to apply right now.]

The thing is that I think that Lily is still very little and that she is currently benefiting from our current arrangements. I also realised that as much as I would quite like a better night's sleep, I wasn't planning to change the arrangement for myself, but rather I was planning to change it because I felt as though everyone else thought that she ought to be sleeping better. It wasn't so much that I wanted to meet anyone's expectations. It was more like I was starting to feel guilty for having a child that doesn't sleep through the night - as though I had failed somehow and that lack of sleep was my punishment.


Once I realised that I really wasn't committed to changing things at the moment, suddenly it all seemed so much easier. I no longer felt so tired in the mornings now that I wasn't viewing my lack of sleep as a punishment. Instead I just saw it as a stage that we are going through and one that I have the capacity to change when I am good and ready (and mostly that will be when I think that Lily is good and ready).

The funny thing was that immediately after making this decision I started reading all these blog posts by people whose babies were also feeding all night, and that made me feel even better. That's one of the things that I love about the blogosphere - it is such a great way of linking up with people who share similar values and experiences, no matter where they happen to live. Having the confidence to follow my own parenting instincts can be challenging sometimes, and knowing that I am not alone in my crazy ideas can make it so much easier. So, thank you!

Stop Press!

Lily slept in her hammock for 30 minutes all by herself.

Not very long, I realise, but that is about 30 times longer than she has ever slept by herself before (if you don't count her first week of life).

Now we just have to work on those transitions...