A whole new world

If this picture could talk it would tell you after 7  l-o-n-g months Martha appears to be sleeping in her cot in the day. 

I try not to get too 'deep' on my blog as i like to keep it light hearted but for every day time nap Martha slept on me, or Rob if he was home, for 7 months.

I felt i daren't complain coz she is a little super star in her bed at night for that i am very grateful. But literally i would sit mainly in the dark for 3 hours every day in silence. I couldn't answer phone calls, i would dread the door bell going, i couldn't make any afternoon plans as i was stuck on the sofa or in her 'rocky' chair. Whilst i realise that some people have this much much harder when you are going through something tough it feels like the hardest thing in the world.

She just wanted her mummy and thats fine but jeez it was hard. 

I gradually managed to get her to do some naps in her pushchair in the kitchen and it was crazy, i could do things, not many but little things, not really eating as she slept in the kitchen which is a big factor when you can be pinned for up to 3 hours in one afternoon nap (you would think i'd be dead skinny, i am not).

And if I'm honest i was jealous of my friends posting 'ah nap time' photos and i wanted a bit of the action.

She basically would just cry as soon as you laid her down in her cot in the day but never at night, i bought book after book, i tried to become a ninja and do it slowly but alas she would wake.

This is how my days looked (this is my vague attempt at Project Life) , and yes cute little baby asleep on you doesn't sound so terrible but she woke up frequently and cried and cried so it wasn't restful for either of us really. If i sneezed i woke her, no calls, tv not too loud and god forbid Olive made a loud noise.

I read a lot which was nice lol. I tried hard not to begrudge her this time as they are only small one and all that. The days are long but the years are short my friend says, and i try to remember that.

We have given Martha a dummy since she was newborn but she would take it or leave it, really not fussed at all but with my sleep issues i tried every now and again and wondered what i was going to do when i went back to work, how would nursery workers be pinned for this time or even worse would they be able to get her to sleep in her cot where i had failed!

But lately she has really started to like her dummy so we head up to her room in the dark and have a cuddle, often with a bottle (but not always) and give her her dummy and sit for a little bit and then out her in her cot. 

And I am SO PROUD, that she is sleeping well, as i type she is on nearly 2 hours on her morning nap which is a tad excessive but i literally can't believe it, I'll be honest it was getting me down, i certainly didn't resent her but i was all blah blah blah i wanna knit, i wanna eat, i wanna go to the toilet etc

We are now 2.5 weeks in and she's still doing really well, some days she needs re settling but for the first time the other day she wouldn't have her dummy or her bottle but had a cuddle and went to sleep. And she is starting to need settling less, she often wakes on her sleep cycles (45mins) but the past couple of days she hasn't. And best of all she even slept in the day in cots at both of her grandparents house, it is hard to be pinned and needing silence in someone else's house.

I am still in the OMG stage and not really the great i can tidy my house, nope I'm like YAY I CAN KNIT!!!!!!

So my knitting mojo has returned. Im starting to have breakfast and lunch again which does still feel like a waste of my 'precious' time. And to be honest, I miss her, i don't miss being pinned but she is SO awesome right now, so happy and content that i just can't believe this is happening too. She is such a 'good' little baby that the sleeping was our only really issue at the moment and now that seems to have gone, well I can't quite explain.

Sleep seems to be a huge topic with 'mummy's' and its also taboo to say my baby sleeps well when so many people struggle with it, but after all of these months I am just so proud of the progress we have made that I had to share it. 

Im much happier when Rob gets in from work which helps everyone and Rob has been off this week and we are able to have some time together, mainly we have been doing jobs but some days we have been doing nothing at all during nap time, well knitting obviously but its just so different. 

And this is Martha literally 30 second after I had to wake her up so she's happy too and thats the most important thing. 

Sorry for the long post. 

Rach xx