Sleep Baby, Sleep!

It's no secret that Little Miss Penelope has never (in all her 5 months old life!) slept very well. She, dare I say it, is probably the worst sleeper out of all five of the kidlets. At first it was just that she hated lying down because she tended to get such bad reflux. This meant that we (I) would hold her at night from around 5pm right through until roughly 10 or 11pm when I would feed her and put her in bed where she would finally sleep for a few hours!

And while I say it like that, she did actually sleep; but as you may or may not know having a baby sleeping on you in your arms hurts like buggery after a while! That tiny tiny little thing that weighs nothing, after a few hours feels like she weighs close to a tonne! Plus you can't really move or do anything if you want her to stay asleep for a while. So for pretty much the entire first three months of her life I would fall asleep on the couch at night while watching tv and holding her. I was awesome at finding just the right position after a while, that would guarantee she didn't slide down; a combination of cushions tucked up behind me and to the side and me leaning in towards the back of the couch meant she didn't move for a few hours.....but man oh man was it painful!

So when she finally started sleeping in her bed at night, it was a time of rejoicing! Yay for being able to watch tv and talk and get up and move around! She still woke up around 11pm for a bottle but was starting to sleep longer so it was around 3ish that she would next wake. Well at just over 5 months, she still doesn't really sleep all night! Don't get me wrong; she is a million times better than she was. But still....I'm kinda tired....

She goes to bed anywhere between 6 - 7:30pm and then she sleeps until somewhere around 10:30 - midnight. Most of the time we wake her up for a bottle, sometimes she wakes on her own. The reason for this is that if we don't feed her, she's up around 3am. If we do feed her, she sleeps until anywhere between 4 and 6am. Which is kind of ok. But she is not really showing any signs of sleeping all night any time soon, which is worrying for me only because I desperately want a full nights' sleep.

So this is where we are at now - she started rolling both ways in the last week but she still loves to be at least partially wrapped for sleep at night. Conundrum! What to do about that? I decided that she needed some sleeping bags - you know the sleep suit style? Partly because that way in the heat she still has something light covering her when it cools a little over night, but also because now I don't have to worry that she'll strangle herself in the middle of the night with her wraps! So courtesy of the Little Miss' wonderful Grandpa whom she has yet to meet, we now have two wonderful sleeping bags that seem to be doing the job fantastically!

Obviously this is not Penelope! But this is the sleep swaddle suit she now has! (and no....we don't make her be a one-armed baby!) -Click HERE for more info



Thanks also to her Grandpa she now has one of those wonderful Airwrap bumpers as well. These are awesome! Mostly because while traditional bumpers are a SIDS no-no, these are mesh; fully breathable and designed to crush under a baby's weight so once they are standing they can't use it as leverage to climb out of the cot. They also have no ties to secure it to the cot, rather velcro along the top and bottom edges so no strangulation risk either. Best of all, it means she feels more secure (the open sides of her cot were freaking her out a bit after the closeness of her bassinet we think), and she can't get arms and legs trapped in between the bars.(Which she had already done at least once!)

So now my only stress about her sleeping (or lack thereof!) is that she has discovered that she likes sleeping on her tummy! Oh the stress in my head about this!!! I know she'll be fine, after all she is the one rolling onto her tummy. I put her in bed on her back. But the little moment of panic when I walked into the bedroom yesterday and saw this:


 She was sleeping soundly, so after my initial panic I snapped a couple of photos.


 She actually slept decently yesterday; I think it was the heat and humidity. I felt somewhat better when I went in to check on her during her second nap in bed (*gasp, in the same day! What's happening here!?) and found her stretched out like a starfish. I think she was hot, hehe.


Ordinarily her daytime naps are mostly short and more often than not, in the pram not her bed. Two daytime naps in her own bed is almost unheard of, but I'll take it where I can thank you very much! She is asleep now again today in her cot, and once again I checked and she's on her tummy... *sigh*....




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Comments

  1. Aww, she looks so cute!
    Love your blog and have followed :)
    Sarah xx
    check out mine? ballerinasandbuttons.blogspot.co.uk

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