Baby sleep, a view from the other side via Child Sleep Works


Ah, life in that other place was so different.  Warm, peaceful, relaxing , food on tap, and no-one telling me when I could and couldn’t sleep.  Happy days.  I felt a little sleepy, I took a nap, for however long I wanted.  And then, one day, think it was about 9 months in, out of nowhere, I felt like something was pushing me out of my cosy little room.  Not just one push, but many, many pushes, until I ended up in a strange, very narrow corridor.  Then suddenly my head was sticking out in a weird place with a lot of noise, shouting and bright lights. One more shove from heaven knows where and I was being hoisted through the air, landing on a sweaty, crying person. What on earth was happening??

Fast forward a few weeks.  All things considered, it’s not so bad here in my new world.  Lots of milk to drink, lots of interesting faces to look at, but what is their problem with the sleep thing??  It’s not clear to me why, when I’ve had  a little sleep and then wake up after a few minutes (what can I say?  I like to chat, drink, poo, cry or play, so sue me!), this is such an issue for them.  From what I understand, they’d like me to sleep for a few hours when it’s the dark time (and sometimes when it’s light outside as well – they call that ‘nap time’,  it’s all very confusing…), but how can I when it’s been a while since I’ve seen them and anyway, I don’t even know how I’m supposed to go back to sleep!  They don’t seriously think I can do that by myself, do they?!  And if I hear about that ‘other baby’ who sleeps 7 hours in a row one more time, I swear I’m going to scream even louder than I do already.

Let’s move on to my next milestone – 6 months old.  I wish I understood what ‘terrible sleeper’ means because apparently that’s what I am. I wonder if that’s a good thing.  I’ve also noticed that they’re not so chatty and fun when I call them after my little snoozes in the daytime.  And during the night time, which seems to go on for ages and ages, they really don’t seem all that happy to come visit me!

What I have cleverly worked out though is if I shout loud enough, they will come and try and give me that sucky thing.  I quite like the sucky thing sometimes but what’s really great about it is that I get to see them all the time when I spit it out.  How much fun is that?!  Sometimes if I keep going with the shouting, they’ll give me some of the white stuff (‘bloody milk’, I think it’s called), which, even though I’m not even hungry, is still nice for a snack.  After all, who’s going to refuse food when it’s offered? Other times, when I can’t really be bothered to go through the palaver of sucking or drinking, I go for the rocking thing.  I do like this one as it does make me nice and sleepy.   It’s so great to have all these different ways to get to sleep!

There is occasionally a strange scenario when they don’t do any of that stuff and instead when I call them, they stand next to my cot and say things like ‘shush, sleepy time’ and try and pat my back.  What’s that all about?!  Clearly, that’s not going to do it for me and we all know that it’s going to end with a snack or some rocking.  Why are they even bothering to do this?  Adults can be so odd sometimes.

Anyway, that’s it from me for now. Think I’ll have a short nap.  I will be popping in from time to time to update you all with how I’m getting on with my sleep and my best tips to help me become a ‘good’ sleeper, whatever that is.  To keep getting my updates, give a ‘like’ to my resident facebook page www.facebook.com/childsleepworks and check out my resident website www.childsleepworks.co.uk.

Sleep well!

© Child Sleep Works 2014 


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