Merry?? christmas

What a first christmas!!!! Caelan's been sick with a yucky cold for a couple of weeks now and it all got much worse last Thursday night - he literally didn't sleep all night. It was horrible. He was in really upset and seemed to be in so much pain and nothing could help him, we just held him while he cried all night. At 3:30am I told Chris to go into the spare room to try and get some sleep cause he was working the next day. He felt really horrible leaving us but did, otherwise he just couldn't have coped on Friday. He got a couple of hours sleep while I sat with poor Caelan and at 6am he came and took the crier for while so I could have a break before he left for work. What a looong hard day for all of us! Poor wee one finally went to sleep at about lunchtime. We had Chris' family chirstmas dinner at our place that night so I had lots of cooking and stuff to do - dunno how I did it?! Auto-pilot's a great thing - it got both Chris and I through the day. It was a lovely night, even though we were zombies - sorry everyone!! But we both really enjoyed it, it was nice to do something normal and hang with family. The nice evening was followed by another yucky night, though nowhere near as bad as the night before, probably due to exhaustion of the short person! While Chris was at work on Saturday (the world just isn't a fair place is it?!?!?) Caelan got worse and was burning up, he continued to get worse so we took him to Ascot Hospital A & E in the afternoon to discover VERY, VERY angry infections in both ears. Poor boy! We left with antibiotics, paracetamol and a temperature of 39 that we needed to get down. So christmas was cancelled this year, he was just too sick. We couldn't go up north to spend christmas with my family - bums, I really wanted him to spend christmas with his 96 year old Great Grandma. Ah well, shit happens! It's been a blur of sleepless nights and a mostly unhappy bubba. Bit sad for his first christmas but there'll be many more and we'll make up for it next year, when he's old enough to really enjoy it. So Merry Christmas - I don't bloody think so! hehe Nah, seriously though, it's been ok - he's heaps better now and we were together, that's all that matters really!

6am christmas morning - Mama and Daddy sure were excited!

Underwater bubs

George and Caelan at swimming on Saturday.

He crawls! He crawls!

This morning he actually crawled and it wasn't just one or two steps before flopping onto his belly like he has been doing. This was real crawling, though it was pretty damned jerky and stompy looking but it was crawling none the less. I was sitting on the floor wrapping pressies for his cousins and he really, really, really wanted to come over and check them out. 'Well I'll just crawl then' he musta thought and crawl he did. He went for a good little distance too - about the length of my whole leg from toes to hips. Then I made him do it again. Just to make sure! hahaha So FINALLY he crawls. Gawd it's bin a long time coming, just went through posts to see when it all started. He was getting up onto his knees at nearly 4 months and then doing the rock and going backwards at 6 months and now actually crawling at 8 months. That's 2 months to get to the next stage each time - crickey that's a long time huh?!! LOL But he crawls :)

Saved our sleep

The following post was written yesterday (Sat 09.12.06) but Blogger didn't want to know about it (think it was down). Yesterday was soooo much better! We might just be damned close to breaking this habit by gum. He was a delight - went to sleep immediately as soon as I put him in bed for his first sleep yesterday, without a peep I tell ya! Second sleep he talked to himself for a wee while and then went to sleep - no crying, no screaming, no fuss! At bedtime last night he cried for less than a minute and then to sleep. HOLY GAMOLY!! This is freakin marvellous and totally thrills us. Horray. It's been hard but Tizzy, we love you. So it's back to being strict again and sticking to his routine and really enforcing things we'd decided were important to us right at the beginning which we'd been letting go if they didn't happen. I think we'd gonna a bit too comfortable and secure and thought "We've done so well, our baby is great and sleeps wonderfully" and let things slide a little and just let things happen that we weren't entirely happy with but though 'Oh he'll be right'. Well we learnt the hard way that he wont be right! So at 8 months and 2 days old we dont wanna chuck him away!! It was a different story when he was just 8 months old. hehehe

UPDATE (written today - Sunday 10.12.06): Last night was a bit yucky on the sleeping front. We went out to a christmas dinner and called Chris' parents at 11pm to see if everything was ok and whether they'd be ok with us being out another hour. Well the wee one had been screaming for about half an hour, so we came home and as soon as I heard the screams I knew something was up. It wasn't his usual 'I'M A POOBUM' screaming, it was really frantic and definitely sounding like the 'HELP ME! SOMETHING'S WRONG!' screaming. So I rushed up and found him on his tummy, trapped in his cot. Poor wee thing! Silly boy, don't know how he did this cause he sleeps in a sleeping bag at night to avoid it, and up until this point it's stopped him from being able to. Bummer, so now he can and we have to watch for this in the night sleeps as well as the day. Dammit. It took quite a long time to calm and fall asleep but I got to sleep at 1:30am to be woken by the little snot at 5am - he screamed for about 45 minutes but fell asleep. Horray! We're all mighty tired here today but it's a pretty normal feeling thanks to our gorgeous little boy.

He's soooooo active these days. All over the show and getting places pretty damned quickly and LOVING being able to do this. Though still no real crawling but by jingos he's pretty damned mobile all the same! It's feeling like crawling is gonna happen soon - though we've thought that since he first got up on his knees at about 4 months! haha And then again when he started rocking and going backwards at 6 months! haha So who knows when he'll crawl really.

We've got a BBQ with all his friends from coffee group this afternoon. That'll be heapsa fun! Must remember to take the camera. Right - off to have a wee relax with my green tea and husband before he wakes.

He is actually getting worse

Today has been hell. He's screamed heaps before each bedtime - he's only just gone to sleep and I put him into bed at 1:13pm - it's now 3:02pm. He throws himself about so much during these screaming marathons that he ends up trapped face-down in his cot with his legs jammed in the bars and sounds like he's dying. Today has been horrendous and really hard. Freakin Tizzy should come here and try to fix this one before we chuck it away! He's happy when he's awake though so it's not anything other than a sleep/self-settling/putting himself to sleep problem - well that's what we think anyway. But there's no way of being sure - it's all just hit and miss with these wee things that don't tell ya. Because he gets trapped I have to pick him up, then as he's so frantic I hold him till the screams are at a normal level, then it's back in the cot to scream some more while I pat him. It's certainly not getting anywhere this Save our Sleep thing we're trying (well apart from the night-waking which seem to be improving). So at this rate, tomorrow he wont sleep at all, he'll just scream when he's supposed to be sleeping and then feed, play scream again. Awesome.

SAVE OUR SLEEP!!!

Since last Friday we've been trying a new way of dealing with this damned night waking. A friend lent us a book last Friday entitled "Save our sleep" - as you can imagine after this hideous last month or so of hardly any sleep I just about jumped on her when she offered it. The title sold it for me, no doubt the case for millions of sleep-deprived parents all over the world. We don't know why he started this horrid waking but it definitely turned into a habit - one that we're now incredibly desperate to break. Tizzy Hall's (the author) approach is to leave them for a minimum of 18 minutes (for a baby of his age), if they're still crying at the end of that time and you can handle leaving them then do so for as long as you can handle it, as they will eventually go to sleep. This teaches them to self-settle and put themselves to sleep, or reteaches if for some reason they don't anymore.

So he woke at 1am and we left him screaming. Sheesh, talk about hard at that time of the morning, he was screaming at me about how horrible I am and how sad and scared he was - it was killing me inside. He screamed for an hour and a half at full throttle before I couldn't handle it anymore. I was waiting for the calmer cries or the breaks in screams... where the hell are the calmer cried or the freakin breaks in screams?!!?!?! Somehow Chris had managed to fall asleep... WTF?!? ...and was snoring next to me. Oh neat, as if the screaming wasn't bad enough we'll just add some snoring to the mix. GOOD LORD. It was a hard night.

I couldn't do it anymore than that though, and had to go in. Tizzy recommends going in and calming your baby, don't pick them up though, you calm them by patting (or whatever works for yours). So there I was in the middle of the night, sitting naked on the floor next to Caelan's cot, patting this out of control frantic little boy, it was really sad. But eventually he calmed, when they stop crying you take your hand away, if they start again you comfort, anyway you go through this until you no longer need to pat them, then you sit there until they fall asleep, he was looking at me for ages and slowly I hid so he couldn't see me as I didn't want him to fall asleep looking at me cause I just think that's creating another problem. When he was asleep I went out. Lordy, lordy, lordy what a long exercise.

The night waking is definitely getting better - last night he didn't wake at all (though the getting to sleep initially was another story so he was probably just exhausted from the marathon crying session earlier!). The night before only woke once and cried, didn't scream, for about 10 minutes before settling himself back to sleep. The night before that he let rip for about 45 minutes and Chris ended up going in to calm him. But there are definitely improvements in the night-waking - it's not over yet but tis better. The going to sleep is DREADFUL though! He just screams and screams and screams and screams and screams oh and screams and then screams some more - he doesn't do any of the winding down to calmer cries, there are no bloody breaks in the scream!! Lying Tizzy!!! The night before last he screamed for about an hour 15 mins before I just had to go in and calm him. Last night he was having a bloody good go and Chris came upstairs to put some washing away and caved - he went in quite soon and completely forgot everything we'd decided to do. He picked him up and tried to calm him, then put him back in and left. This technique say's when you go in to calm them, do just that and don't leave till they're asleep as she views the leaving again as teasing them and thinks they can get even more worked up and upset if you do that. If they don't calm in 46 minutes (these time frames are bloody weird!!) and you need a break, you get the baby up and go out for a break of 10 minutes. Then put them back to bed and start the 18 minute crying thing from there. If you can keep going and trying to calm them, then you don't have a break and you keep going till they're asleep.

But in amongst all the yuck feelings you get from it and sleep-deprivation Chris just went in and did that and then left. Caelan go super duper freakin worked up then, really didn't think it was possible but he proved it was. So we got him up and gave him some paracetamol, sat him up for the 20 mins for that to take effect and then back to bed. He went straight to sleep from exhaustion the poor thing! But consistency is the key with all of these things, no matter what you've decided you're doing you need to stick to it. Chris felt horrible afterwards and didn't know why he did it, he just couldn't listen to it anymore and had to go in. Poor thing! It's so hard though, when we decided we would do this we decided that we really need to support eachother and in times when I've found it really hard and nearly caved Chris has told me not to and that we have to leave him. When one weakens the other keeps it together and on track - but he didn't even talk to me about last night the silly bum. He went up to put washing away, I was in the kitchen and then he never came back. Opsy. Poor Chris. Poor me. Poor Caelan. Hope it works soon. He's such a damned determined screamer though - apparently most babies have broken the habit and can settle themselves to sleep without any fuss. Mutter, mutter, mumble, mumble... ours is broken!!!

The book worked for the friends baby in 3 days, she's lent it to two other friends and it worked after one night and the other after four nights. Well screw them too! hehe

Photos

Sure I'll sit here for a photo Mummy.


Hhhmmm... what's in here?


Ops! BUSTED!

Latest photos

Hanging out with Uncle Vincent when him and Granddad visited from Australia.


Getting ready for summer.