Tuesday 19 February 2008

.catching up.

I feel like I haven't blogged in ages. You know how you have days where you have lots on your "things to do" list and you feel like you can't get ahead? For some reason that is how I have been feeling the last few days...and it is one of my LEAST favourite feelings ever! So I've got a couple of quiet-stay-at-home-do-nothing-much days coming up so I am going to make the most of them.

We took Eve and Chris to Wings Wildlife Park in Gunns Plains on their last day in Tasmania. We had never been before, but it turned out to be such a cool littlte wildlife park. And the surrounds were just breath-taking. After living in Tasmania most of my life I still marvel at the absolutely delightful scenes we are blessed with. This wildlife park is really one of those places that is in the middle of absolutely no where...
Since then quite a few milestones have been reached around here...

**Our precious Lil (have I mentioned how absolutely delightful she is??) is rolling EVERYWHERE. She is so good and will even see something in the room that she wants and roll and wriggle her way over to it - her favourite things being trains, pieces of paper and anything little that she should not be touching, such as Oscar's crackers (which she thought were very delicious!).

**On Saturday morning Oscar ASKED me if he could do a wee in the toilet. About a month ago we were having a go at toilet training and he was not happy about it at all so we decided to give it a break. All of a sudden he wants to go and is more than happy to sit on the toilet rather than sitting there crying while I hold him down! I am very excited about this toilet training business. Since Saturday we haven't been able to give it another try as we have been out alot, but will have another go at it tomorrow and the next day, so fingers crossed it will go well.

**Since being away in Sydney, Lil has formed a dreadful habit of having a feed at 7pm before she goes to bed and then feeding during the night at 11pm, 1am, 3am, 5am and 7am - aaaarrgh! A six month old does not need to feed that much - especially on with rolls like Lil! Because we were staying in other people's houses she would wake up more being in unfamilar places and I didn't want her to wake anyone up so would just feed her all night. She was terrible all last week aswell, so on Sunday night I decided it was time to get tough with her. Our house has two bedrooms that are down one end of the house and the master bedroom is way up the other end. When we moved in Jaron and I decided that we would sleep in one of the two bedrooms together and Oscar and Lil in the other so that we wouldn't have to go so far to get to the kids if they woke in the middle of the night and keep the master bedroom as a guest room. It wasn't working out with Lil and Oscar sleeping in the same room as she would wake him up in the night time so we moved her into the hallway outside our room! Since she has been waking up so much I can't leave her to cry when she is so close to us and kept feeding her just making the problem worse so on Sunday night I moved her into the guest room. I had visions of a horrible night filled with lots of crying and me being strong and not giving in to feed her as we had many nights like that with Oscar. To my amazement she was soooo good and went to bed at 7:30pm. It is really hard to hear her from the other end of the house, which is probably a good thing as it gives her time to get herself back to sleep without me getting up straight away. She woke around 3am, but was laughing and cooing to herself, I went in to check her and felt sorry for her (hmmm...not very tough!) being awake and all alone in the middle of the night even though she was perfectly happy and ended up feeding her and bringing her into our bed because I missed her! Ha! So last night she did the same thing, but this time when she woke up at 3am I decided to just leave her and see what she would do and I ended up falling back to sleep. I woke up at 4:30am and she was quiet so went in to check her and she was fast asleep, then I didn't hear from her again until 7:30am! I was so amazed and felt so sorry for her in the morning, but she was perfectly happy. I think sometimes as a mother it is best just to step back and let them do it themselves. It really helps to have a room so far away from our room so that I am less aware of what is going on. So, we are hoping that tonight she is just as good and stays that way. After she has settled down and is sleeping well consistently I will move her back into Oscar's room as I really want them to share a room. Any sibling room sharing tips to share??

11 comments:

Bianca said...

Hi Toni! We have a similar situation in our house. Two bedrooms up one end and two up the other. We had Scarlett sleeping all the way down the other end of the house and Ollie slept in our room when we first moved in. I moved Scarlett next to our room after a while because I couldn't stand her being so far away! Ollie is still in with us... and yep, we hear and react to almost every sound!!! Well done for letting Lil get to sleep on her own..hoping to follow your example

Anonymous said...

We tried to get Belle and Hinckley to share a room but as Belle takes a nap during the day still it meant Hinckley was cut off from her toys or things she may want during that time which was frustrating to her. Also at bed time they just seemed to giggle and play for hours no matter what then wake up cranky and EARLY! Perhaps we will try when Belle doesn't take a day time nap anymore?
PS a great toilet training book which makes toilet training REALLY fun is "toilet training in less than a day" by Azrin and Foxx it was published in 1974 so is a bit funny to read but the idea is great and we have used it successfully with both our little ones.
Best of luck on both fronts!
xo Holly

The Kings said...

Well done Tone! I don't have any sibling sharing tips as my boys are so much older and never shared when they were little. I wish Noah was so easy to train to sleep through the night! Last night was not a good night and now I think he will sleep all day, but I won't get to! :)

Marnie said...

Great post, I LOVE the second last photo of Oscar! You are very brave for letting Lil sleep in the other end of the house- I dont even like it that Denver is in the next room- and he's 5!! hehe... I hope she gets into a good routine soon!

Cas and Jared said...

Hey Toni,
I don't have any kids, however I have 3 older brothers and shared with them when I was little! I think it's hard when they are really little! But from prob the age of 3 onwards I shared with them! We had some fun!
Cas xo

Cullis Family said...

Lil did exactly what Darcy did when we went to Melbourne for Christmas. I was always paranoid that he would wake everyone up so I fed him even if he just squeaked in his sleep!!! I can’t wait until Darcy sleeps through the night again, maybe he should have a play date with Lil so she can remind him how it is done! :)

Simone Triffitt said...

Hmm tricky! The girls have shared since they were little and they seem to go through phases where sometimes they would talk for ages and want to play and other times they would go to sleep. Those times I would put one of them to sleep in my bed and move them later. They took turns in "Mummy's bed". I do nighttime stories, songs etc with both of them now together so they understand that together they must go to sleep. Good luck! xx

Sarah said...

What beautiful photos Tones! I hear you with the night feeds, that would always happen to us everytime we would travel with one of the boys. It's hard the first night trying to break them out of the habit but they are much happier for it in the long run. Hyrum and Ashton share a room. Up until a month ago I had a portable cot set up in the study so I could move Ashton during the night or early in the morning if he was going to disturb Hyrum, while still creating the habit that they share a room. I took it down once it had gone unused for a few weeks and I realised they no longer needed it. I put them both down to sleep at the same time and they generally wake up at the same time (although if one of them wakes up earlier they come hop into our bed). Good luck!

Just another Triffitt Family said...

Hi Toni,
We mothers are funny!! Your post sounds all too familiar!! I did the same thing with William at YW's camp (feed to keep quite) and also suffered the consequences:( I've just cut out night feeds for the 2nd time and is working a treat. He's sleep through the past week:) hopefully this blissful state will continue. That's awesome about Oscar, hope he continues wanting to go to the toilet, the thought of toilet training scares me!! As for the shared room idea i have no advice but it sounds fun, good luck:) See you at conference
Louisexxx

whitneyraye said...

Tones i love all these pictures!! i miss these kids soooo much :(
i especially love the edited photos at the top. they look awsum!!
i just made a blog. check me out.

whitneyraye said...

my blog isnt as cool as yours though. yours is like the ultimate!!
omgshhh i have no clue who ross is.. and some other random from argentina commented my blog alsoo. how weird.. do you ever get random cmments? how do i block them from commenting me.. its freaky

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