Sleep School

We finally did it. And it worked!

On Monday morning Heidi and I headed out to Tweddle in Footscray, full of trepidation. There were about 8 other families in our group, most with babies the same age and with the same issues. I was very anxious about the whole experience as I knew it would involve a fair bit of crying... but really, it just wasn't that traumatic. Heidi responded very well and barely cried at all, really just grizzling for 5 mins and then falling asleep. And I must admit, it was like a mini holiday for me; no cooking, cleaning, laundry or toddler-minding. I got to sit around and read books and chat to some lovely people. Plus the food was so lousy, I even lost some weight! Can't complain about that.

Keeping in mind that this was the worst it's ever been, and the co-sleeping only started a couple of weeks ago when I got very sick with a virus and couldn't face sitting on Heidi's floor at 2am when I had a fever...but this time last week, this is what Heidi was doing:

6.30pm Bed
8.00pm Wake, cry. Resettle would fail, end up giving her quick comfort feed to sleep
9.15pm Wake, cry, comfort feed
11.00pm Wake, cry. Bring her into bed with me, comfort feed
12.15am Wake, cry, comfort feed
2.30am Wake, cry, comfort feed. Often awake/grizzling til 3.30am.
4.30am Wake, cry, comfort feed
5.15am Wake, put into bed with James
5.30am Juliet arrives in my bed (!)

Now, this is what she's doing:

6.30pm Bed
9.00pm Wake, grizzle, resettle for 2 mins, back to sleep
11.00pm I go in and give her a feed, waking her if she is asleep
3.30am Wake, cry, resettle for less than 10 mins
6.15am Wake for day.

How good is that!!! We're packing away the spare bed for good today. Life is finally returning to normal :)

Back on board

Well, haven't I been slack?

We've been a sick household since mid-August - that's my excuse anyway. It's been one thing after another - a nasty bout of the flu which kept 3 of us bedridden, followed by gastro, then a cold, and now some other horrible bug. Bring on summer!

It feels like it was years ago, but we had some VIPs fairly recently - James' parents visited us from the US. The girls absolutely adored them (Juliet is still reciting "See my pinky...") No big excursions this time except for a day trip up to Maldon, but the time seemed to go very quickly nonetheless. We squeezed in a trip to the Aquarium, Zoo, Museum, city, Southbank and the casino, plus of course visits to family. Unfortunately we didn't take many photos, but we did get a professional photographer to do a shoot while they were here. We're dying to see the results!

In the meantime, here's a nice pic of all our parents up at Maldon: