Silja's Sleep Diary: eight months old

Silja was eight months old yesterday, and again it seems that so much has changed in a couple of weeks.

And in just a couple of days we'll be at our new home in Switzerland. We're all really excited, a bit sad but most of all incredibly busy sorting out a maddening amount of detail, so keeping to a regular schedule with the baby has been near impossible.

Which is a huge shame, as when we have a "normal" day - like yesterday - things work out wonderfully and Silja is an absolute pleasure to be with: up at around 7.30am for a breakfast of porridge and fruit, a quick nap during the school run at around 9am, then milk and a long nap from 11am until 1 or 2pm, lunch, a snack or milk followed by a short afternoon nap around 5pm before dinner, and finally a good long milk feed before bed at 8.30pm.

Sometimes she's up for a bit more milk at 11pm, sometimes at 3am, but now she's even slept through a couple of times.

On the other hand, if her schedule gets thrown a bit - like today when she completely missed her long nap - she is cranky, the nights are more difficult, and getting anything at all done is pretty much out of the question.
 
The funny thing about my eight months old sleeping through the night is that in the morning I usually can't remember if she's actually done that or not.

Even if she sleeps, I wake at least a couple of times a night when she moves about. And even if she wakes, I might wake just enough to feed her a bit and then fall asleep - so it doesn't really matter much either way.

However, she's got so much more mobile (again) over the past weeks that we had to raise the side of her cosleeper all the way up between the cot and the big bed. And I hate to admit this, but of course we only did it once the accident had happened and she had rolled out of the big bed ...

She rolled all the way from the cot over the side that was low enough to slow her down but not high enough to stop her, and out of the other side of a super king size bed.

I was in the next room and didn't hear a peep before the awful thud and scream, so I don't think the odds of that happening were rather slim, but of course it entirely my fault and I should have realised long ago that letting her nap alone like that was an accident waiting to happen.

Fortunately the floor is carpeted and the bed is quite low so she wasn't hurt. Now Silja's only sleeping in her own cot with both sides up, and the bottom lowered a few notches.
 
Since I now have to lift her into the cot and out, I thought I'd really like to limit the times I need to move her back and forth. Also, she seemed to be really into comfort feeding - rather than really feeding - especially in the evenings, and as I normally have tons of things to do (like watching Desperate Housewives while folding laundry) when the kids are in bed, I was starting to feel someone or rather something else could take on my human dummy duties.

I don't really like dummies / pacifiers - no proper good reason, just don't like the way they look - and I was quite pleased Silja didn't seem to want one, but when I offered her one a few nights ago she suddenly seemed very happy to take it!

In a few moments she was sound asleep, and now it's working great - if she wakes she might whine a bit but now I can simply reinstall the dummy, rather than having to pick her up and feed. And if I can just limit the use of the dummy to bedtimes then I won't mind too much. And furthermore, using a dummy when falling asleep, and keeping her in her own cot, does seem to limit the times she wakes at night. 

It will be interesting to see what our eight months old thinks of traveling. We only have two more nights here at home in London, then there'll be two nights in a hotel, a long day of train travel, and a whole new home to get used to and almost a week before Silja's proper cot arrives in Zürich. I can't afford to lose any sleep now, so it's on with a bit of packing now, then to bed.



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