And so to bed

I have just tucked my daughter up in her very own bed.

Somewhat extravagantly, I also tucked her up in her very own duvet in her very own duvet cover.

It was oddly touching. Of course, I nursed her to sleep first, but that's normal, and one reason we got her her own bed - it's easier for me to nurse her to sleep this way, and it's the easiest way for her to get to sleep.

With any luck, this means that during her night wakings I can get her to go back to sleep a lot faster, and we can sleep much of the night in seperate beds; she and I are active enough sleepers that I think we wake each other up a lot more than necessary now that she's not tiny enough to be fragile to my sleeping mind. I still don't roll on her, but I do move in my sleep now.

And in theory, as night wakings become ever briefer, they will become less of a habit, and happen ever less.

Or maybe I'll reread the No Cry Sleep Solution and start working on that.

Soft Play

We went with our friends H (mother) and F (baby) to a softplay area today. For the princely sum of £3.50 we spent over two and a half hours climbing and sliding and wriggling and rolling and running and hopping and - importantly - sitting and watching. It's only 25 minutes' walk away, possibly even only 20, and it's on a handy bus-route if it rains. There are sofas, and a cafe that sells real food if I decide we need a hot lunch, or tea and bananas if we just need a snack, and adequate toilet and baby-change facilities, and all sorts of excellent stuff.

And they never close.

They are open from 09:30 - 18:30 every day of the year except "Xmas".

From now on, however bad my day is, if I can find £3.50, I can make Linnea tired and happy.

Life just got a whole lot easier.

Also, I haven't been mentioning it but now Rob has - Rob is depressed. It's only to be expected, with what he has been living with for the past 17 months, and now that we have a diagnosis and - hopefully - treatment, life should get easier for everyone. He's taking a drug I have used to reasonably good effect. He has not been offered counselling but then, I am still waiting for counselling and we had me diagnosed a lot earlier so maybe that's all to the good. Waiting for something that doesn't show up wouldn't do him any good.

If we were a soap opera, what would we be called?

A Moment of Maternal Confidence

It now takes less than ten minutes to soothe Linnea down after a screamy scary waking.

And yesterday, after Linnea pulled her socks off with her teeth in the deli so that she could wave her lovely toesie woesies in the breezy weezies, a total stranger walked up to me and said "Goodness me, what happened to her socks?"

And I answered, "She ate them."

Gentle reader, there was not even a hint of a tint of apology in my tone.

I Have Arrived.