I have sung the carol to Josh on many the occasion this month but he doesn’t quite seem to get the concept. Josh’s sleep pattern has always aired on the bad side but coming up to Max arriving and just after it really peaked, which was to be expected I suppose.

Moving him into his cot bed was what exacerbated the whole thing but he is a big boy and the cot was no longer suitable for him. People say he doesn’t like his bed but I just think he doesn’t love sleep-unlike his mama! I ain’t going to spend mad money on a new bed to end up with the same result that’s for sure.. 

He is a light sleeper and we have played our part in creating bad habits for him. Staying in the room until he dropped off, lying with him when he wakes, reading him a riduculous amount of stories but we also have always had a routine with him too. It’s been tweaked over the years but the basics are there.. Bath, Dora cartoon on our bed with milk, story in our bed then his then time for sleep-in theory. 

In practice this hasn’t always worked. There have been overtired nights, there has been the odd refusal of a bath, there has been quite a few nights of sitting in with him until he drops off and this peaked just before Max’s arrival. 

It was then we call Niamh, a sleep coach from The Nursery. 

We toyed with the idea many times but with another on the way this gave us the push we needed. It’s all common sense stuff, stuff you have semi implemented but some of her suggestions were great but Max arrived the very next day and clocks changed the week after so the plans got put on hold and we just rolled with the punches for those first few weeks. He’s an earlier riser so whilst she would normally recommend dropping the nap she suggested just reducing it so we have done that. My advise here is if you have sleep issues don’t let it drag on as long as we did-contact Niamh or at the very least read her book to get some practical tips! 

#joking 😝

It sure is a killer when you are doing night feeds too and just as you drop off the toddler wakes, my husband is great at sharing this load but you still wake and at times I don’t drop back off as quickly… We will implement a few more of Niamh’s plans in the New Year when we are also settling Max into some sort of routine and here’s hoping 2017 is the year of sleep! Meanwhile this will be me this Christmas…