Silja's Sleep Diary: seven and a half months old

The last couple of weeks have been really busy as we're preparing for our move from London to Switzerland, trying to squeeze every last bit of fun out of London and the UK.

There were a million things I wanted to see outside London before we go, but since moving this family about requires the logistics and precision of a military operation, we've managed very little. Last weekend was delightful, however, and we spent a night in a extremely grand country house near Oxford.
 
Seems that Silja's "big baby" sleep schedule is ideally suited to glamorous country life. She slept all the way there in the car in the morning, woke up happy but properly hungry for lunch, then explored the grounds, watched us play tennis and swam with us until the cocktail hour.

She then slept happily in her buggy on the lawn while I enjoyed a quiet gin and tonic in the evening sun, having sent the big kids to explore the obligatory yew hedge maze. They found their way out, but fortunately not before I had finished my drink.

Dinner (with white linen, silver and crystal) seemed a rather brave thing to try but went perfectly, as Silja was again rested, happy and suitably hungry to enjoy her own dinner. I've had to leave restaurant tables in a hurry with screaming babies so many times in my life that I still can't quite believe we finished two courses with a seven and a half months old in relative peace and the parsnip stains in my skirt are hardly noticeable.

For now, it really seems that the key is to get Silja's eating and sleeping in sync. She eats well if she's slept well and is properly hungry. Or in other words, if she's too tired when she's hungry she won't eat her solids properly, and then she's soon so hungry again that she won't sleep well.

We've had those days, too, and in much less glamorous surroundings - but that's not nearly as much fun to write about, so I won't elaborate.

Another fantastic development over the past couple of weeks is that Silja's become much more capable of self soothing, or be soothed, if she wakes up. This is quite noticeable during the daytime as she's becoming more patient and can handle being a bit tired or hungry without much fuss.

At night, she still sleeps very lightly, but when she wakes, she mostly just takes a quick look around and if everything seems to be in order, she'll go back to sleep!

Or she might need a little pat on the head or a hug, but most of the time she doesn't really need to be nursed. I was getting really worried that I had created a very bad habit by often nursing her to sleep, but now it seems I might get away with that bit of naughtiness after all, at least for now. I still don't really know how often or at what time I wake up at night, but I must be quite well rested to be writing this quite late on a Friday night.
 
But that's all for her seven and a half months old report. The next update will be my last one from London, then it's on to Switzerland ...



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