Posts Tagged "sleep"

The Week According to Sam- Week Eight

Posted by cafebebemama on Jan 23, 2012 in Motherhood, Week According to Sam | 3 comments

This week was about ups and downs…not for Sam…but for me. I’m struggling a bit. Trying to RELOCATE myself, trying to find time, trying to fulfill obligations and be a good mother, wife and me. Sam? He’s brilliant. While we are still working on separating a bit more during the day, he is a happy, healthy, lovely boy. What more could you ask for? This week should have been Sam’s eight week check and 1st set of jabs. But as the NHS can’t seem to count, we have that appointment next week. Gee darn, postponing Sam’s first jabs. I hate that part!

We did accomplish one item, however, this week. Sam’s cot bed got put together! Huzzah and Pip Pip! We picked up a replacement parts kit from Kiddicare and reassembled the cot so it was fit for purpose. But then, as we were all standing in Sam’s room on Saturday, I mentioned that it might be nice to decorate Sam’s room for SAM. Cue Mark’s creative side and next thing we knew, we were at B&Q buying 2 shades of blue paint for the walls. Now Sam’s room is totally back to disarray as Mark adds a “boy” stamp to the room. The cot is still assembled, however, in the middle of the room as it’s too big to fit through the door. One day Sam may have his own room.

Here is the week according to Sam…week eight…in pictures:

Sleep training commences…swaddling, positioning, white noise…we’ve got it all. Sam slept brilliantly ONE day for 1 1/2 hours. He has taken on the persona of Houdini however and now regularly wrangles his way out of the swaddling. The boy wants his arms free!

Time for a dream feed…Sam looks ever so serious! Bless…

We met Mark to journey into Stamford to get my taxes sorted with an accountant. Then we managed to convince Mark to take us out to lunch. Sam enjoyed a bit of formula while Mark and I munched through some sandwiches. How decadent are we?

Attempting a bit of fashion and style here, Sam sports a bandana. This boy is going to be a drool monster…I just know it!

This picture cracks me up! We arrived at the local Soft Play place on Friday as it was a rainy, horrible day. Ella got to run around like a mad-woman and Sam got to be snuggled by Mummy and MummyMatters! Not a bad situation!

You SHOULD be sleeping Sam!

“I quite like this play mat Mummy…can you please stop taking pictures of me though! Geesh!”

Thanks for tuning in for another week according to Sam. What will week nine bring?

My Hero

Posted by cafebebemama on Dec 22, 2009 in Little Miss Adventures | 8 comments

Daddy & Little Miss at the pool

Little Miss has a cold.  This should not be a surprise or anything remarkable but it is.  You see, she’s only had maybe 1 other cold in her 18 months!  She’s had runny noses and sniffles due to teething but has never been struck down with the green-snotted monster.  It’s difficult for her to have her morning and bedtime bottles because she can only gulp a few times and then has to stop to breathe through her mouth.  And the night-time…Oh. My. God…I haven’t slept properly since Friday night (it’s now Tuesday).  Mummy is the only one who will do in the middle of the night so we’ve been sleeping in the guest bedroom so one adult in the family can have a moderately decent night’s sleep.  My back is killing me, I have puffy eyes and my patience is razor thin.  It’s not the happiest of times in our house right now.  I wish to God that Little Miss would not scream bloody murder every time I come near her with the nasal aspirator.  I know it’s mean and nasty but it’s the only way to get the CRAP out of her head!  I’ve given up however, as she’s very good at getting hysterical and rapidly thrashing her head about so I can’t get anywhere near her nose with the blasted device.  Now we’re wiping and wiping and wiping her increasingly red and runny nose.  Boo.  I’ve got my own little Rudolph in my house.

But, I digress.  I’m going to gush about my husband now…get a bucket!  My hubby came home from work yesterday to find a rather emotional, frazzled and exhausted wife hovering over a Little Miss who wouldn’t eat the dinner in front of her.  After sussing out that I was hanging over the edge, he forced me to go upstairs and lie down while he took snuffly Little Miss to the grocery store to buy the groceries that never got bought during the day.  They were gone for an hour.  I couldn’t sleep (as is the curse of an over-tired, irrational mummy) so I had the bath that had never been had during the day.  I managed to cling back a bit of being human in time for hubby and Little Miss to come home.  While I bathed Little Miss, hubby started the dinner, did the washing up, started the laundry and finished the dinner.  He even washed up the dinner dishes so that I didn’t have anything left over this morning.  It was so lovely.  It may not sound like much but it was brilliant to know that I had a PARTNER who could take a bit of the load off.  I have no idea how single parents or military mummies do it.  I would absolutely crumble.  So, even though he never reads it and doesn’t even care to use the computer, THANK YOU honey for being my hero last night.  I still had a rubbish night’s sleep last night and feel like a truck ran me over but at least I got a wee break.  I’m so grateful to have a partner in the parenting trials.  What wonderful thing has your partner done for you lately?  If you’re a single parent, HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Posted by cafebebemama on Dec 2, 2009 in Sleep Deprivation | 28 comments

Little Miss & Daddy- 2 Days Old

Not that I watch daytime television…seriously I don’t…we’re perpetually programmed onto Cbeebies from 9am-Whenever…but yesterday there was an interesting topic on the programme “The Wright Stuff” on Channel 5.  The topic was “Does your partner hear the baby crying at night?”.  Discuss!

I have asked this question in my head a number of times and out loud once or twice.  We have struggled with sleeping since Little Miss was 4 months old and went into her own room and into her own cot from the Moses basket.  It’s obviously more ME struggling as I COULD use all the sleep techniques in the world to allow her to sleep and settle better but I am a melty heart kind of Mummy who can’t bear to hear her baby crying.  Little Miss is a bit better now but she readily wakes throughout the night, calling for Mummy.  I lumber out of bed, shuffle into her room, tap on the night light, rummage around her bed for the dummy which has been lost and plug her back in.  9 times out of 10, she immediately re-settles with a gentle stroke on her tummy or back and back I shuffle.  9 times out of 10, this first waking occurs approximately 18 minutes after her Daddy and I go to bed.  Sweet.

In 18 months of parenting, I can count the number of times my hubby has gotten up to her on one hand.  I had decided, early on in this parenting game, that I didn’t mind “taking one for the team” as my husband had to work in the morning and I didn’t.  I still subscribe to this theory but there are times, when I have gotten up for the fourth time in the night and am shuffling back to bed, that I’m more than a bit cheesed off.  I usually settle into our bed with a mighty “HARUMPH” which is intended to communicate my frustration…sometimes he notices, usually he doesn’t.  Now, I’m not whinging about my husband, really, because we have talked about this several times and his honest reply is “I just don’t hear her!”.  So that’s my question…WHY DON’T DADDIES HEAR THEIR CHILDREN CRYING??

Maybe this is different for the Daddies who stay at home with their children?  Are they the ones with ultra-sonic hearing as opposed to the Mummies?  In these glorious 18 months of parenting, I have not had ONE uninterrupted night’s sleep.  Some nights we’re lucky- only 1 waking and only a semi-ridiculous o’clock rising from Little Miss.  Generally it’s more like 2-3 wakings in the night which require my attention.  Yes, I know, I can hear you…just let her CRY IT OUT!  Well, I can’t…and thus have created my own mini personal hell.  I have learned to survive on only maybe 5 hours of sleep in total each night (that’s a good night).  I don’t remember what it’s like to sleep through…will I ever again??  My husband, in fairness, is very good when Little Miss wakes in pain or poorly (nasty teeth!!).  He has always supported me and helped to get medicine down Little Miss when we needed to or held her while I ran around getting supplies.  In the early days, he would doze next to me while I fed Little Miss her bottles in our bed but soon I stopped that as I knew he needed the sleep in order to function at work the next day.  I love my hubby dearly and think he’s an amazing father but I would, just for one week maybe, like to switch ears with him so I could catch up on 18 months of sleep deprivation.  I know if would look a bit funny but I have a feeling that I would be a much brighter person on a wee bit more sleep.

So, how does it work in your household?  Is your partner helpful with night-time wakings?  Do you flop down in the bed with a mighty HARUMPH when returning to bed?  Do you remember what it’s like to have an uninterrupted night of sleep?  Would you like to come to my house and be my night nanny?

To Sleep Perchance

Posted by cafebebemama on Nov 10, 2009 in Sleep Deprivation | 9 comments

But not so soft, what sound through yonder nursery breaks?

It is ridiculous o’clock and Mummy is knackered!

Arise fair child and disturb Mummy’s sleep for the umpteenth time.

Mummy, who is already pale and cranky with sleep deprivation.

That thou, my gorgeous baby, art far more clever than thou should be!

A lot of lack of sleep ago...

Rock-a-Bye Little Miss

In your room so late.

If you’d drop off to sleep

it would be really great.

When Mummy slips you into your cot

Please give us a break and sleep a lot!

Cafe Bebe is now open for sleeping-through advice.  Please leave your comments below!  (PS-We do not subscribe to the Gina Ford School of Militant Babies)

Birth Memories

Posted by cafebebemama on Aug 10, 2009 in Uncategorized | 6 comments

I was tweeting away when one of my fellow Twitter-ers posted a photo of her daughter JUST being born by C-Section.  Mummy in question, in the photo was peering over the edge of the drape to see her daughter being lifted from her.  It was a lovely picture with a beautiful new baby taking her first breath.  I instantly felt sadness.  I didn’t have that moment and I suddenly felt a real emptiness about that. 

My labour and delivery were not as I had planned, but then again, is anyones?  I was 12 days overdue and went in on Sunday 1 June, 2008 at 9:30pm.  After being checked and monitored by one of the nurses, they determined that I was in the early stages of labour so I wouldn’t need pessaries.  My husband was told to leave and they continued to monitor me throughout the night.  At some point my blood pressure flew through the roof so blood tests were ordered and more monitoring ensued.  In the meantime, I didn’t sleep a wink.  Being one of four women on a labour ward is not exactly restfull.  Every time I needed to use the loo I had to shuffle down the hall to a communal toilet.  I’ve never walked back and forth so many times.  I was having mild, very sporadic contractions but nothing horrible.  I learned that birdsong begins around 3:15am in June in England as I was awake to hear it. 

Around 8:30am, a doctor came in to break my waters to try to get things moving.  I kept thinking about the “knitting needle” that she was using to do it and kept waiting for the gush of waters that I had always heard about.  There was no gush but there was definite pain!  My contractions started to kick in a bit more and I started to really want my husband with me.  He turned up freshly rested and bearing magazines and snacks.  I just wanted him to rub my back and be with me…didn’t really care about the OK Magazine in his rucksack. 

Finally at about 1pm, we were moved to the active labour ward.  Because I was “induced” there would be no midwife-led unit and birthing pools for us!  We arrived in a small room with a bed, chair and lots of medical equipment.  At least we were in a room of our own though.  We had 2 midwives who stayed with us during this time…we got to know them quite well but I couldn’t tell you today what their names were.  I was asked about pain relief as I was going to be put on a Syntocinon drip.  I wasn’t sure but was brought round to the epidural idea.  Then I was repeatedly stuck in the worst ways 3-4 different times in both hands in order to get a canula in for the Syntocinon drip.  They couldn’t get it in!  On top of the contractions that were now becoming decidedly uncomfortable, I was being tortured my midwives, nurses and doctors who took 4 attempts to hit a vein.  That pushed me right over the edge…EPIDURAL NOW!

After being properly scared by the anaesthetist who said “DON’T MOVE!”, the epidural began to run.  I felt a cold rush into my spine and the pain began to go away.  Who cared if I could move my legs?  I didn’t feel pain!  But guess what then?  The epidural was patchy!  This meant that after short periods of time, the epidural would wear off from my right mid-ribs down my right leg to my toes.  This also meant that I began to feel contractions again.  I would get sprayed with cold spray to test the numbness in my limbs, twisted and turned to try to get the epidural to float over to the right side and then get the epidural topped up for a while.  This process was repeated numerous times.  I couldn’t lay down and couldn’t really get comfortable as Little Miss had a foot or some pointy extremity lodged in one of my ribs so again, I couldn’t sleep.  I hadn’t slept for about 30 hours at this point. 

Apparently I created a lovely environment for my baby because she decided that she was just not going to come out.  After 2 rounds of Syntocinon and numerous epidural top-ups, I was still only at 3-4 centimetres.  10 hours after entering the active labour room, a C-Section was decided upon and I was grateful.  I knew that had I ever got to 10 centimetres there was no way I was going to be able to push Little Miss out.  It then took another 2 hours to get to theatre as there were so many c-section women in the queue.  We were now into 3 June, 2008 having come into the hospital on 1 June.  Sigh…

Finally it was time to be wheeled into theatre.  My hubby was led away by the midwife to get “scrubbed up” so I was on my own.  This is where I began to get scared.  Theatre was cold and echoey and bright.  I couldn’t get over how large and shiny the light above the table was and vowed to NOT look in it.  I didn’t want to see what was about to happen.  Once I was installed on the operating table, I began to get quite scared.  Hubby was not yet with me, people were bustling about and I was all alone, really.  I think due to the epidural which had been topped up again and the fear, I began to shiver and my teeth began to chatter.  I couldn’t control it.  I felt cold and very frightened.  Suddenly my hubby was next to the right side of my head and he kept asking if I was alright and why I was chattering.  I didn’t know!  I was so worried about when they would start the c-section and then I felt a lot of pulling and tugging and then I felt my own legs moving!  What??  Once of the nurses remarked that “this woman’s legs are moving!” and some more drugs were pumped into me.  I could feel everything…not pain but massive tugging and yanking around.  I still don’t know, to this day, if I was halucinating or if Little Miss was really stuck.  I do know that she wasn’t coming out any other way and that she did seem to be stuck in my pelvis.  I continued to chatter and shiver and feel really bloomin’ miserable. 

There was a release when they finally got Little Miss out of her home of 9 months followed by a mewling sound and a “It’s a Girl!” from someone.  Hubby and I gasped and said “It’s a Girl!”  I knew it was a girl…mother’s know these things.  The next few minutes were a bit of a blur.  I know Little Miss was wrapped up and brought to my hubby who then held her to my head so I could look at her.  I’d never seen such big, dark eyes staring at me.  She was quiet and calm and just stared at me.  I said “Hi you” and after a minute or two, began to feel really horrible.  I told hubby to take her away as I was going to be sick.  I kept shouting to the medical people that I was going to be sick and finally someone brought a dish for me to tip my head into and be sick.  How dignified!  My daughter just comes into the world and I throw up!  I made sure hubby went with Little Miss and then I know a lot more drugs were pumped into me.  I had looked at the clock when I threw up (1:55am) and then just was very dozy and out of it until about 2:45 am when I was being wheeled out of theatre to recovery.

I still don’t know what the heck happened in theatre with Little Miss’ birth but I did end up losing about 2 pints of blood and nearly needed a transfusion.  Doesn’t seem like it was all that pleasant and I have rather horrible memories of the whole thing.  I feel like I missed out on the JOY of birth, even though there was a moment of joy when I knew Little Miss was safe and when I saw her tiny face.  I was so out of it and so out of control that it’s mostly a blur.  My other friends who had natural births had that “Awwww” moment that I couldn’t have and it makes me a bit sad.  I did feel like a failure as well.  I know I ended up with a gorgeous, healthy Little Miss and that’s all that really matters.  If there’s a next time, I hope I will be a bit more in control and happy whether that’s with a c-section or natural birth.  I’m grateful that my Little Miss and I came out of the entire thing mostly safe and sound but I do have some very mixed feelings about the entire thing.  What about you?  Was your birth ideal and “fairytale” or was it your own personal nightmare?