Sleep

photo credits here

For some sleep is like a past time and then for others it is more like a luxury.  Some can drift of to dream land in almost an instant while others battle to get their eyelids closed long enough for sleep to occur.

Personally when I decide it is time to sleep I am asleep within minutes.  There is no mucking about.  No tossing and turning, just sleep.  Of course still having young ones means that I may not actually stay asleep for too long but you can't have it all.

Unfortunately Miss L does not have the same sleep skills as I.  To her sleep is for the most part a waste of time.  It interferes with things she wishes to get done.  Never mind the fact that her young body needs it to grow and replenish.  Now some might say that her refusal to sleep is a direct result of the manner in which I treated her as a baby.  To that I would say shut up!  I did what I thought was best and at the time it worked for us.

Controlled crying is not something that I support.  Particularly for little ones.  In my opinion there is plenty of time for them to come to terms with the fact they can't always get what they want.  Needless to say my babies get cuddled and fed to sleep and laid down when I am sure they won't wake.  When they are too big to go to sleep in my arms I lay next to them.  When Miss L was little I had all the time in the world, it didn't bother me if I fell asleep with her or if we had no routine.  There was really only her and I that it didn't seem to matter if we weren't in synch with the 'real' world.

For DD2 going to sleep takes on average 10 minutes and it is one of my favourite times of the day.  It is when she will tell me the most beautiful part of her day.  She is happy and relaxed and you can just tell that she is going to drift off to somewhere beautiful.  As a baby we would play Nina Simone singing Here Comes The Sun to her to let her know that it was time to sleep.  Rarely would we ever have to play it more than twice before she was soundly sleeping.

As for DD3? Well still to early to tell really.  She goes to sleep with relative ease still, though there have of course been instances where she has protested and needed a little convincing of how tired she really was.  We have a bouncer chair thing for her that we gently bounce her off to sleep in.  If When she wakes in the night, a quick boob sends her straight back off.  Why can't it be that easy when they are bigger?