Sleep…sleep….sleep…..zzzzzzzz

Just lately I seem to be spending far too long either thinking about sleep or talking about sleep. More to the point what I have done so wrong? How have I ended up with two children who don’t sleep through? J can sleep though, he can sleep for 12 hours but he likes to wake up once a night –if Daddy goes to him (which only happens at weekends) then he goes back to bed. When I go to him he holds me hostage, by threatening to scream the house down if I leave the room. Now I have no problems with leaving him to scream and kick up a stink because after ten minutes max he will go back to sleep. However I’m very reluctant to allow it to happen for the fear he will wake R and then I will be dealing with them both awake.

I can’t remember the last time I slept for a full night, by the time J was sleeping through I was pregnant and having to make loo stops in the night. So it’s possible that it’s been over two years since I had a decent stretch of sleep.

R doesn’t need milk during the night, and he’s proved that a few times – however it’s too easy to offer him boob and know the will fall back to sleep. While co-sleeping of course. When he woke Saturday night I sent him down stairs to his daddy and the pair of them slept there. So even though I woke a dozen times because of my cold, it was heavenly to just be able to roll over and go back to sleep. Not attempt a dummy search, while holding a baby and trying to keep him quiet so he doesn’t wake his brother.

R won’t sleep for more than three hours at a time; sometimes he will wake for 5 minutes other times 2 hours. It’s wearing me down and with the imminent return to work I need to try and fix it. I need a plan, I need to stick to it – however I really don’t know what to do. There are so many types of sleep training but most of them seem to involve leaving the room. I don’t want to leave my room at 3am in the morning. If we are doing control crying, where do I go while he’s crying in my bedroom? How the hell does it work? Has anyone done any kind of sleep training while sharing the room with their baby? Or have you just had to grin and bear it?

Eventually he is going in with J, and it’s very tempting to just move him. Face the fact that I’m going to have complete and utter hell for a few weeks but solve the problem eventually. It seems mean to disturb J though with R’s night wakening’s though. I’ll have horrible nights and horrible days, as lack of sleep makes for a very grumpy toddler. HELP!

Dribblebuster sleeping bag - Review

I have been meaning to write this blog post for weeks but it just keeps getting pushed to the side as other things pop into my head. So I thought it was about time I just got on with it.

I saw a random tweet to win a sleeping bag from Dribblebuster and having nothing else to do I decided to enter on their facebook page. All you had to do was write your bedtime routine for your baby to be in with a chance of winning. I’ve never won anything in my life, so when I logged onto facebook a few days later to find a message telling me I had won I was shocked.

My winning post was:

We do bath, baby massage then we lay on my bed and I feed him. Wind him and then lay him in his Moses basket and he plays for a bit before falling to sleep.
With my toddler he has wind down time, and then upstairs to bed, a story of his choice, kiss... and good night. Routines are brill :)

I got a little excited waiting for the post to bring me my prize. I don't get very much nice post - mostly just bills. The sleeping bag arrived and it looked lovely – it’s just a shame they don’t sell them in adult sizes.

This is what the website says about them :

Give yourself and your baby a good night's sleep with these delightful baby sleeping bags which provide comfort and warmth with no need for additional bedding. Baby sleeps safer and warmer with no sheets or blankets to wriggle under. The sleeping bags also prevent baby's feet being trapped between cot bars.

Each is made with finest quality 100% cotton pique with soft cotton jersey lining. Suitable for babies from 10 -18 lbs up to 68 cm height. Machine washable at 30 degrees C.

* Your baby will wake up warm and therefore be more likely to go back to sleep. * Your baby cannot slip down inside the sleeping bag; sheets, blankets and duvet's can go over baby's head. * Your baby can kick and wriggle contentedly and does not feel constricted. * When travelling or in strange surroundings, your baby will always feel always feel comfortable in it's own sleeping bag. * Easy zip designed to make changing your baby easier.

We have a couple of sleeping bags, I find them much more practical that using blankets. Especially when it’s cold, it means baby can’t kick off the blanket and get cold which he has a habit of doing. 

The sleeping bag comes in three colours, pink, blue and white. The design isn’t anything fancy but it doesn’t need to be. All that matters is that it does what it’s supposed to – keep my baby warm.

I love the ease of use; you can zip it up around baby even if he is already sleeping. Another sleeping bag I have you need to physically put baby’s arms through the arm holes. This one has poppers on the shoulders which you tie up. When I first put R in the sleeping bag, I was slightly concerned at how big the arm holes were, but then I realised he can’t take his arms out anyway and even if he wriggled them inside it’s not going to matter. The neck is the perfect size, not too small that it’s going to annoy R and not to big that there is any risk of baby wriggling down into the sleeping bag. 

The material is lovely and soft, both on the outside and more importantly on the inside – leaving baby both snug and comfortable. The sleeping bag is quite roomy, meaning R still has freedom to kick and wriggle his legs without feeling constricted. We’ll definitely be able to continue using it until the weather warms up.

The only negative I can think of is the price tag, it’s pretty pricey but the quality of the sleeping bag is brilliant and I prefer it to some of the cheaper sleeping bags around there.

They’ve also got some funky dribble bibs on the site, and I just adore them. 

So there we go my first product review, I quite enjoyed it :-)