Day 7

And thus the 'Johnson's sleep challenge' is complete.

Last night was absolutely magic. No tears at bath time, no tears during the baby massage. Daughter fell asleep in my arms, went down for an  hour, then woke up. She calmed easily, then I put her down drowsy and left her to go off. I'll definitely be continuing this routine, challenge or no, as it really seems to work.

Sceptical as I was at first, I can definitely see why this series of actions has the desired effect. Everything about getting baby ready for bed is centred around love and intimacy, and as the night time is the longest that baby is away from you, I see it almost as a fuelling-up on attention and company until the following morning. Sure, the nice warm bath is great, as is the massage, but I think that ultimately, all Daughter wants before she goes off to sleep is to feel safe, secure and loved. I mean, don't we all? I certainly know that if I were so small and vulnerable that I'd want all the snuggles I could get.

I think people forget, as I've said before, that when they're dealing with babies they're actually dealing with tiny people. I have frequent arguments with folk about the 'cry it out' technique - also known as the Ferber Method. In my eyes, it's just barbaric. I explain my dislike of it by telling people to imagine that they're abroad with no money, no food, no passport and no tickets home. 'Crying it out' to me, is like being left unable to explain your predicament to anyone, yet instead of trying to help you, the locals just ignore you, and leave you to your own troubles.

It is such a comfort to have  found an alternative that so far, appears to work.

Day 6

Another rough night. Not for lack of trying though.

For over 4 hours, we battled to get Daughter to sleep in her own bed but every time I put her down, she started crying. Every time Dad put her down, we'd get a two minute respite before the tears began again. I would say that I persevered through it until the end, but there was no end - just an alarm clock at 7.30am.

In fairness, she did spend the time she was awake last night feeding, so perhaps a growth spurt is imminent. The lack of sleep, however, has really taken its toll on me and I am determined tonight that my little monster will kip in her own bed. I know she's not doing it to be naughty, and that it's possibly my fault for the debacle in the car when I was out with Granddad, but it's wearing all the same.

Day 5...

... failed to happen.

I went to see Granddad to take him out for lunch but all the pubs we came to were closed and then, when we were just over an hour from home, Daughter decided she wasn't playing any more.

It took us nearly two hours to get back, stopping every few miles to cuddle and comfort little girl. From dropping Granddad off, we then had to make the forty minute journey home. It took over an hour again.

By the time we got in,  Husband was home so with frayed nerves, I handed Daughter over, took a few deep breaths and vowed to try again today...

Day 4

Sceptical but silent, tonight's bath was rather more of a success than usual. The massage caused the standard howls, but new to this evening's line up was a spate of tears when Daughter was presented with her bottle.

I don't care though. Today, I got my first laugh and as a result, it has been the best day of my life so far. I've heard Daughter squeal with delight before, but this was a dopey 'huh huh huh' sort of a sound, made in the back of her throat. She has a lower voice than most babies I've heard. I'm hoping that this will lead to a lovely, silky tone when she's older but only time will tell.(I'm still giddy as I'm typing this - if it doesn't come across in my writing, you have to imagine the above gush blurted in an Alyson Hannigan-American Pie sort of way)

The glorious chuckle came as I was spinning her in circles, saying, 'weeee,' as we went. Rest assured that tomorrow, there'll be a whole lot of that going on.

Day 3

So the books might have been right about putting baby down whilst drowsy instead of asleep. After 7 hours of uninterrupted kip, I had to wake Daughter up because I thought my boobs were going to pop.

So, we try again tonight, and see if it was just a fluke.

It was fairly eye-opening, having to get Daughter to feed during the night. Up until now, I'd always thought of the relationship in terms of her being dependant on me, but that really isn't the case. I rely on her just as much.

Which is why the fact that I've started weaning her onto bottles in earnest now was a little hard to swallow at 2am. Don't get me wrong - I am having SO much fun with the baby rice, and I'm loving the intimacy that the bottle affords me - but from a purely physical perspective, we will never need each other again once this is over. Of course, emotionally it's very different, but it's still one tie I will never get back.

I'm not going to stop weaning her, but I will slow down. I aim to have her solely bottle feeding in time for our holiday in October. Until then, I will do what I can to enjoy the last vestiges of breast feeding.

Johnson's Baby sleep challenge.

When I feed Daughter, I tend to watch various TV shows over the Internet. In the ad breaks for these shows, I am often told to try the Johnson's Baby sleep challenge.

So, sleep deprived and desperate, I decided to look at the site. In honesty, it's a fairly poor design - things are hidden away that I'd like to be in clear view and the message seems to be the same as what Mum told me; bath, bottle, bed. The difference being that in order to sell more Johnson's sleep products, they've switched the bottle for a baby massage.

But what the hell, right? I figured I'd try it - sans expensive toiletries - and what do you know? It worked. I will keep it up for the suggested 7 days and see how we go.

Growing up

Milestones, they call them. Developmental milestones.

The system* would have you believe that they are to be reached at a specific time by children who are developing at the normal pace. I've come to think of the whole thing like the A1 north-bound - everyone is pushing on in the same direction, but in reality, we'll not all reach Newcastle at the same time.

Most of us are travelling by car on or around the speed limit - we're hitting Newark and our first words as and when we should. But as it's an A road and not a motorway, all kinds of other traffic is allowed to travel our path too. You get tractors - steady and strong - classic motor cars which perhaps don't have more than 4 gears but are intolerably beautiful, not to mention the occasional and eccentric horse and cart. They won't get there as quickly as the rest of us but as its the destination that matters and not the journey time, it isn't really an issue.

Except.

People get competitive. We seem to be conditioned to treat all of these milestones as markers in a race. Daughter didn't smile until she was 8 weeks - 2 weeks older than most babies. Friend's toddler didn't gain weight as fast as expected which caused health bods to worry and question his development.

Things seem to have to happen to kids so quickly - they have to sleep in their own bed from day one, be away from Mummy from the time she's ready to go back to work, and learn to smile, to talk, to crawl all according to some sort of magical calendar. When we panic if our children don't reach these milestones at the same time - if not faster - than they're supposed to, is it any wonder they're growing up too quickly? We're competitive, so we push our children forwards in an effort to say to the world, 'We are better. Our child is better.'

Just a thought...

*I'm not one of these 'fight the system' morons, I just don't know what else to call the... thing (well, system) that our growing kids are supposed to adhere to.

About

So as you may have gathered already, I'm the hippie type.

I believe in attachment parenting, breast feeding and co-sleeping. Not all of those things - as I've discovered and discussed - are entirely practical, but the attachment parenting thing is. Which is why we don't own a pram or a buggy. Either I carry Daughter in a sling, or Husband tosses her over his shoulder in a fireman's lift. In any case, it's all about the cuddles. We've found that Daughter is brighter and happier the longer she's with us, so that's what we do.

But apparently, there's a whole host of wacky peeps out there who believe the same thing. I got to speaking to another Mum as I was handing over my clubcard in Tesco today and she was telling me about a meeting where sling-lovin' parents go to be smug about slings together. Well, she didn't quite use those words but...

I kind of want to attend - partially at an ironic distance and partially because I am a bit smug...