Bonjour or “Hello”

My name is Ruth and Richard has very kindly asked me to join the Lullaby Babies blog.  I am mother to a, mostly, charming four month old baby girl called Izzy.  We live in the French Alps with her dad and his parents though we hope to move into our own place in a few months.

We moved here  a month ago from Gran Canaria, but that’s a whole other story, so life has had lots of change recently.  I was worried that all the moving and new places and people would upset the baby and disrupt her sleeping at night, but we have been very lucky that she has adapted well.

There are a few things that she finds confusing, just a month ago I would pop a babygrow on her and she would be ready for the day, no fuss no bother.  Now the babygrow is just the start; there is a tee shirt, leggings, socks and jumper so I have to use all my best tricks to keep her entertained on the changing table in the morning as she gets layered up for the day.

Though I think it is all my extra layers at feeding time she finds most frustrating.  I can see her thinking; “I didn’t order a mouthful of wooly jumper with my milk!”

I hope you will enjoy sharing my view of motherhood, I’m not expert, just a beginner that is enjoying learning with her baby.

We have continued using J’s bedtime routine with the inclusion of putting her into her cot awake.  Half expecting the same as the night before, however this time it took her 10 minutes to settle.  It is nice to be able to have the evening to ourselves and not having to rush up when she cries.

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We have followed instructions to the letter, and J’s bedtime routine has only changed in the fact that we don’t put her in the cot asleep.  This resulted in her having a hissy fit and crying, so we followed the technique and went in after 10 mins, didn’t pick her up and said ’shh shh’ continuously whilst rubbing her.  We do have the problem that she likes to stand up in her cot so we were concerned that it was going to be a pain.  After 35mins the crying tappered off and by 40 minutes it had gone very quiet.

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All was quiet last night and I went to bed feeling upbeat about starting the Technique.  Surprisingly J slept till 3.45am to which I was woken with screams.  I didn’t go in straight away but when I did she was standing upright in her cot, dummy out and wailing like I’d neglected her for hours.  I quietly went over and without taking her out the cot I swooped her back to lying down.  (not sure if you are allowed to do this as it might be classed as picking up).

For 2 minutes I repeatidly said ‘Shhh Shhh’ and rubbed her belly as that is her usual cue when going to bed to go to sleep.  She went quiet but still eyes wide open.  After what i thought was 2 mins (not easy to count when your tired) I left her.  As soon as I took my hand off her she started crying again. 

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After months and months of being woken up every night (10 months to be precise), I’ve decided to do The Ferber Method starting tonight.  I just want to sleep and I know its going to be hard but I need to do something otherwise I’ll be ending up walking down the aisle with black bags under my eyes.

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