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children

Attachment parenting, Cosleeping, Parenting

Eight approaches for happier sleep

5 November, 2012

Yesterday morning Ramona woke up at 4:30, full of beans. She planted some kisses on our faces, did a morning fart, followed by a belly full of giggles, and began climbing all over the bed. “Awake! Me! Pojo??” Pojo is her word for porridge, she was ready for breakfast and up for the day.

Grumpy is not the word. I was mad all day. Mentally flipping the bird at every stupid email I received, I stomped around the office, grizzled under my breath my whole cycle home. I was reminded what it is like to be deeply unhappy with a child’s sleep patterns.

I spent many of Ramona’s first months feeling this way. She’d take forever to go to sleep at the sensible time of 7 pm and then wake at the crack of dawn. I disliked spending an hour doing a night time routine and getting her to sleep, bobbing up and down the stairs to her throughout the evening, and then peering out of the bed covers at the clock and seeing 6 am shining back at me just a few hours after I rolled under them.

It was only when Ramona was a year old that I realised I wanted to take a more relaxed, less structured approach to her sleep, and since then we have all been much happier. Of course, we still have the odd terrible night, an evening with a wired tot who won’t sleep, or a crack of dawn morning. But on the whole my mind is free of sleep anguish, and that deserves a celebratory doughnut.

I’d say adopting eight different approaches helped me feel much happier about our sleep situation.

  • I got the “sensible bedtime” idea out of my head. The most sensible bedtime for a child is when they are tired. Sometimes, due to a late start or long nap this is ten pm. Mostly for us it is somewhere between 8:30 and 9:30. It took me a while to get this, even 8:30 pm seemed outrageous to me, so I’d try and try and try to get Ramona in bed at The World Will Approve O Clock. Once I let go of this, our evenings got a whole load more relaxed.
  • I decided that beds were overrated. For a year, Ramona took her naps on me in the sling or on the sofa, but always began her night time sleep in bed. Once I realised she was often much happier falling to sleep at night time on the sofa I began to see the benefits. We’ll cuddle up amongst the cushions, then after she has drifted off, while my husband and I read or chat, we can put a film on, or continue the get-together with our friends. Because she is right with us she’ll rarely stir much and then I just take her to bed when we go.
  • We abandoned the routine. Sometimes the bath, songs, story schedule worked. Mostly though, Ramona hated the idea of going upstairs and leaving behind her crate of toys, the lovely people in the lounge and a kitchen of food. She’d be upset about being carted off somewhere else, or we’d end up doing story after story until she was ready to snuggle down. Not making such a palava of bedtime made the transition to sleep so much more natural
  • I watch her cues and set the scene. Sometimes Ramona will ask for “bed”, sometimes she’ll just ask for “mummy milk” (as opposed to “Daddy milk” which is what she she calls dairy! Mahaha…) or sometimes she may yawn, get a bit angsty. At this stage I will put the lamp on, quieten down the house and settle on the sofa with her. This transition is much easier for her mind to cope with!

  • I accepted that kids all have different sleep needs, and they are fairly good at meeting that need if we allow them. Ramona can rarely sleep more than 11 hours at night. If she goes to bed at 7 then that is a 6 am wake up call. ER, NO THANKS! Getting up at 8am makes us all happier but that does mean I have to accept that traditional bedtimes don’t suit us! She still naps for an hour, an hour and a half. But if she has a few short naps then she might go for a number 14 hour night sleep!! I just trust her in all of this and shrug off the concept of a 12 hour night.
  • I accepted our new normal. Once I got used to the idea that Ramona would continue to stir at night, and would continue to need me, my mind calmed down and my new state of contentment really helped! Instead of waking up and thinking “She woke 4 times and she is nearly two!!!” And being appalled at my poor parenting, I now simply recognise that she just has superior survival skills….because obviously, we are built to stir all night so we can respond to danger and stoke the cave fire! Also, perversely, the few times she has slept all night I’ve had a rubbish sleep due to a lack of lovely nursing hormones. Wrong, that is, I tell you!
  • I rejected the “creating good sleep habits” rhetoric. Mainstream parenting advice claims routines, sleeping through, self-soothing and sleeping in a separate space sets our children up for a lifetime of excellent sleep. Erm. There is an MAJOR flaw in this in that we have been repeating this record for decades and we are some of the worst sleepers in the world!!! Nearly 40% of us suffer from insomnia. Mainstream advice is clearly doing something wrong.
  • I embraced a “live intuitively” philosophy. I try as much as possible to let Ramona be self-directed, to eat when hungry, cuddle when she needs it, jump on the bed if she fancies it, and sleep when she is tired. I hope all of this stuff will allow her own gut to be the loudest voice when it comes to making important decisions, that she will be less reliant on the sways of peers and external evaluation. Learning to respond to her body and its need will surely give her a confidence and a wholeness that will give her a much needed resilience. Knowing that I may be suffering a little less undisturbed sleep than others for the big picture, the future well being of my daughter, makes it a tiny, insignificant suffering!

These ways aren’t for everyone, I know.  If you are content with the fixed way you do thing, please, don’t change a dot!!! But maybe some of you are like us, and do want to take a more abandoned approach to sleep and parenting, and I hope our story will encourage you to do that. For me, stumbling across other families that did this gave me the freedom I needed to parent this way boldly, and not secretly! I liked these two pages, especially…

This collection of quotes from homeschool families who just roll with it, sleepwise. 

Letting kids find their own sleep patterns

Finding a bit of freedom around this whole sleep situation has been a part of my attachment parenting journey. For me attachment parenting is all about choosing connection, over control.  I am down with boundaries- i.e, I wouldn’t give Ramona sweets before bedish time, or have a massively exciting game of tickles just as she began to yawn, but integral to my parenting is a relinquishment of my need for high control. Allowing Ramona a certain amount of autonomy is important to me, and these approaches to sleep extend that philosophy to her bedtime.

So… *asks timidly, trying to be brave* … what do you reckon?!

Attachment parenting, Parenting

You are the expert in the topic of your children

24 June, 2012

We have just come through a week of pretty angsty bed times. Some nights Ramona took a whole 1.5 hours to get to sleep. Even though we are just reading, nursing, singing and I should be able to think wonderful pleasant thoughts about spending all that extra time with my tiny delight, I don’t. I just get a bit annoyed inside, dreaming of being able to go downstairs and read without having a full-of-life  toddler flickering about around me.

And then, as quickly as the Bedtimes of Terror period began, it stopped. It stopped because I began trusting myself again.

You see, a week ago I read on a blog that I had been lurking on a bit (a blog that really resonated with me about lots of mothering practice) about children’s sleep. Sleep is always the thing that makes me a jittery mother – when Ramona was a baby I spent hours a week, it seemed, googling topics to make sure she was getting enough (or not too much!) After many months we settled into a pattern I was comfortable with and I stopped my obsession. Then I read a bit on that there blog about how crucial toddler sleep is, and how tots MUST go to bed before 7pm.  I was a bit stunned. 7pm? So certain? Just like that?  But she mentioned “circadian rhythm” with real conviction- I don’t know what this is but it seemed to be about syncing with the earth, which, y’know,  I am all for.

Now, Ramona tends to go to sleep between 8 and 9, unless she is sleepy earlier. What a TERRIBLE MOTHER! That night I vowed to give her the opportunity to sleep at 7pm. It didn’t go down too well with her but still, for the following 6 nights I tried every trick in The Book to convince her that 7pm was the right, circadian time for her to go to bed.

Every evening after she finally nodded off I’d come down, Battle Weary (a loving, cuddly one but a wrestle of wills all the same) and annoyed at having frittered so much time away upstairs.

It took six days for me to regain trust in my parenting. Six days for me to realise that the sleep pattern we had woven for ourselves was the right one, despite what other mothers do and the experts say.  Six days to sod the Circadian shizzle.

See, when it comes to Ramona, no-one is more expert than me.

And when it comes to your child, you are the know-it-all; the person most in tune with his rhythms, the detector of her subtle signs, his soul-whisperer.

Childhood charts and sleep guidelines and “Musts” and “Ten Signs of” may be helpful for some – I am sure. But for others of us they undermine what we have come to understand of ourselves, our children, and our ways. When I read that Ramona is just under the “normal amount of sleep for an 18 m old” I am wracked with guilt, especially when it is followed up with facts about how vital sleep is for development. But then I take a moment to look at my daughter and see her joy, her exuberance, her calm, her growth and  I feel okay about it all again.
When I trust that she will sleep when she needs it and eat when she is hungry, our lives have a certain flow and a tangible ease.  (My role is to provide the right conditions for these things to happen, of course,  but I need to trust her to take the bite or rest her head.)   I also need to trust myself as a mother, trust my intuition and my instincts and trust my ability to interpret my daughter and muddle through our own path.

Sometimes when I read the stories and tips and facts about others I find all of this trust just eroding a little bit. If you are like me in this, I just want to say it again:

You and your child are the best experts in all of this. You are the same flesh and blood, and your hearts beat to the same rhythm. Embrace the fluidity of your lives – don’t hide it or be ashamed- too soon they will have boring meetings to arrive promptly at and all the Schedules of Adulthood.  Feel the freedom of knowing trust in each other, to be guided by each other. Not a soul on earth knows  or loves your child more than you. And that is just how you roll.

Right, this is me using all of my blogger’s monthly entitlement for cheeseball posts.  Please forgive me, I was just really feeling this today.

Parenting

Taking WOW out of our dictionaries

22 May, 2012

Ramona has found the word WOW. It spirals out of her mouth, as she opens her jaws wide, the WOW taking over her whole scrunched up face. Unlike other little kids Ramona takes a new word and hones her skill. Instead of picking them up and tossing them round, she’ll discover it and repeat it for three days straight. It will be the last thing she says at night, and the first thing on her lips in the morning. We are hearing WOW alot and it is really most adorable! 

The words she says are often the things she loves – so duck and clip clop (horse, yeah?) came pretty quick, but she also is a bit of a reflection of ourselves – a great resounding HIYA was her first audible a utterance. I didn’t think my Welsh genes revealed themselves that often but hearing Ramona trundle around saying HIYA at every opportunity has corrected that thought! Just yesterday Ramona was having a leetle bit of a tantrum on the floor when our housemate walked past – Ramona paused bawling  to yell out a very polite and cheerful HIYA, and then carried on.

So with her bopping about  WOWing everything, I have realised just how much I say it myself.

And I’m not sure I want to.

Particularly when it comes to the things Ramona does.

I haven’t read much on the subject, just enough to open that old Parenting Can O Worms, but I feel praise has gotten away with us a little. (One article that made me think was by Naomi Aldort and Aptly named “Getting out of the Way”- do read it, if you have moment.)

We are told to praise our children at every step, and I hear adults crying “Aren’t you clever!” at the most simple of things kids do. Here are my jumbled thoughts on the matter:

  • I don’t want her to learn to do things in order to get affirmation from someone else.
  • I want her to do things for the sake of enjoyment.
  • I want to give her creativity free reign- to not put my judgement (good or bad) on her activities and drawings.
  • I don’t want to use words to manipulate her into doing the things I want her to do.
  • Want her to be absolutely assured of my love no matter what her actions are
  • Want to be interested in the things Ramona does – I want her to sense my enthusiasm and care.
I love the image of our children marching to the beat of their own drum, growing up assured in their own imagination and hopes, not bumping around on the words of other people. Nurturing this kind of person begins now I think,  as we put our own WOWing aside.

As Aldort puts it “Getting out of the way gives us an opportunity to become curious observers. At the same time, it frees us of power struggles and initiates an approach to parenthood that is infinitely more enjoyable and fulfilling.”

We are trying to hold back on giving her constant praise, or saying “Clever/ Big/ Good girl” in order to get her to finish her dinner (or something). 

I need to find alternatives though! To show that interest, and to avoid manipulative talk, I need to dig around for what else I say. I am definitely going to try and reserve WOW for being awestruck by a forest, an ocean or a sky full of stars, rather than Ramona climbing up a frame or doing a wee on the potty.

Hmmmm. Are you trying to do this? What do you do? What do you think about it all? You can be totally honest, our family is. My mum is a hoot – Ramona will sit on a chair and mum will say “CLEVER GIRL!” then look at me, then back to Ramona with “I mean; how does this make you FEEL??!!”

Thrifty

301 Thrifty Activities for kids – squeeze every drop out of summer

13 August, 2011

Oh, Hello!!! Yep, here we are. Still in England. Waiting and waiting and waiting for a passport that is stuck at the Passport Office like a humongous fatball clogging up a London sewer. It has been there for 2 months and they are devoid of all sense of urgency. *flares nostrils in their general direction* (Or as my mum used to sing “I open my nose at you, you, you.” Anyone else used to sing that? Nah. Didn’t think so. Must be a Welsh thing.)

There are just a couple of weeks left of the summer holidays and, just in case you were running out of ideas, here are over 300 of the buggers. Some are are plucked from my own befuzzled brain, the rest from the fine minds of fellow internet friends.thrifty activities for kids

We have had quite a lot of fun while we’ve been hanging about. Ramona makes it pretty clear when she is enjoying herself by changing lyrics to songs according to what we are doing. The other night it was “If you’re happy and you know it go to the forest!” This age, where they are imaginatively playing with words and ideas, is so flipping brilliant. (It’s sad that they have been termed the Terrible Twos – I’m sure it doesn’t have to be this way.)

Aaaaaanyway. Number Uno:

1 – GO TO THE WOODS! The coolest place to be in the heat. Find a patch of trees and get your badger on. Dig, play, forage.

2- More specifically: Build a Den. These are so much fun and so easy to make proper, good ones. Check out this little video here.

3- Toast Marshmallows over a fire. We took a little BBQ and built our fire in that as it is so dry we wanted to be super cautious. We did it in the evening after a whole day of boring jobs. It recovered the entire day for us. I was inspired recently by reading about microadventures – I think toasting marshmallows in the woods counts as one of these. Toasting marshmallows and 300 other ways to have thrifty fun (Ramona’s marshies got toasted for about 1 second before they went straight in her mouth.)

4- Make a fairy/ dolls house. We did this in the woodland at Camp Bestival, primarily to entertain our sick little Ramona who was languishing in the trolley. But we got really quite into it. There is something magical about making these tiny little huts!

5-14- Here are ten more FREE forest activities from the wonderful Missie Lizzie.

15- DO STUFF WITH ICE! The most fun I’ve ever had with a bunch of kids involved freezing a 50 cm by 30 cm tray of ice and then using it to slide down grassy hills. BEYOND FUN!

16- One of Ramona’s favourite activities this year involved chipping little animals out of a big block of ice I had frozen. I gave her proper tools, knives and screwdrivers and mallets in order to do it. Some might say she is a little young for these implements but she soon learnt – there was BLOOD EVERYWHERE. Just kidding, there was no blood, not even a minor accident; I believe kids are much more capable than we think and they love feeling their power with proper tools. Chipping ice block and 300 other ways to have thrifty fun

17- A coloured ice bath. Use food colouring to create rainbow ice cubes and pop them in a cool bath with your kid. A lot of fun, and the right amount of mess.

18- We made our own slushy by pouring Ribena into our ice cream maker – such a delicious treat that Ramona got really hands on with making.

19- 23 – Here are 12 more ways to play with ice. Will definitely be trying them out.

24- HEAD TO THE CITY. Explore the city through your child’s eyes, hands and feet. Head there with no agenda and simply explore the nooks, crannies, walls and doorways she fancies. Genuinely, it is fun, really. And it helps your kid feel like a million bucks. Do some research before hand to see if you can get any good deals on anything. (Check this out)

25- Find the fountains and splash parks. They are hidden all over. In London the best one, I reckon, is at Somerset House. But they are also tucked up at the V and A, outside the Royal Festival Hall and in London Zoo.

26- One of the things I will miss about not being in a city is the million free things happening at anyone time. Galleries and museums and centres put stuff on throughout the holidays. I tend to use Time Out to see what to go along to. Free fun in the city and 300 other ways to have thrifty fun We found a collective street chalking activity on the South Bank – Ramona chose her body as the canvas though.

27- Keep an eye out for two for one offers and then head one of the many kids attractions out there. This map has them all in one handy spot.Littlewoods Summer activities map

CHEAT ALERT! CHEAT ALERT!

28-93- Provided by the cool cats that are Style My Party. They are simple ideas but really original and I guarantee you’ll find something in there. Especially love the One Colour Only Day and the Hula Mocktail Party.

93- 301- Provided by the lovely Joy and chums in the Summer Carnival. There are craft ideas, and nature play, and recipes for kiddos. Blinking brilliant.

This sign was written by the next door neighbour’s kid and hung up on a tree yesterday; “Pleeease can somebody organise something fun” – I think they might be a family who have run out of ideas, hehehe. Hopefully some of these will cut it! 20130813-113824.jpg

Do you have anything on your bucket list still to do this summer? Would love to hear them!

Delivered in partnership with Littlewoodscheck out my disclosure for more info on that.

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