What’s a full night’s sleep like?
Little ‘T’ is still not sleeping properly and I am still to work out why; and to be totally honest it is leaving me feeling weary, exhausted and grumpy. She will sleep through on a very rare night (perhaps twice a month?) and she has gone through the odd phase of sleeping 4 nights in a row every now and then, but she is almost 2 years old and I’m feeling completley worn out.
I’ve read countless books, followed the Gian Ford plan, monitored her TV time, what she eats, checked her iron levels, been to the Dr, seen a sleep specialist, spoken with the Health Visitor but still no soloution. The Dr. and sleep specialist both think that she is a very active thinker (which I must agree with, she literally never, ever stops ‘doing’ or ‘thinking’ from the second she wakes up, she is permenantly sorting, reading, making, playing, building, tidying etc.) which leads her to start ‘thinking’ every time she wakes during the night, instead of just dozing back of like most toddlers.
Sometimes she wakes up moaning and crying and other times she starts talking and shouting, often “Look Grandma, look – Maisey’s having snacks” (Maisey is Grandma’s cat by the way) or “Dolly, where are you?, Dolly?, Dolly?, Dolly?”. Sometimes she plays hide and seek and I can hear her running around her room shouting “hide, hide, FUN!!”.
She has 1.5 hour nap at lunchtime every day and goes to bed at 7pm and gets woken up at 7am, she has gentle stories before bed, hardly eats any sugar, only drinks water or pure fruit juice with lunch, daily outside time (walks, playing at the park, playing in the garden etc.).
I know that before long she will be at school and is growing up so fast before my very eyes but I cannot help but wish for her to hurry up and sleep through the night properly, I’m really looking forward to the day that I can go to bed without fearing how long I have before she wakes up, over, and over, and over…….. I might give controlled crying another go again (though I’m not keen on doing this unless things get totally desperate), I may shorten her lunch time nap, I may introduce a little porridge for supper, I’m not really able to think straight to decide what is best to do but I’ll keep searching for ideas.
The outcome of being so tired has made me too nervous to drive somedays, but it has made me do more knitting in the evenings (simple, easy knitting, requiring minimum brain power) and my wonderful husband has got up with ‘T’ at the weekends to let me have a rest in the morning. We have been going for walks instead of driving anywhere and been busy in the garden lapping up a little bit of Spring that seems to be just around the corner.
I’m sorry that this is a bit of a moan, I’m feeling a bit moany today, and a bit tired as last night was particularly bad!
(Photographs taken this week)
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