Family | Henry Hates Sleep

Henry hates sleep. Or me. Or both. Funny thing is during his first few days on earth he was an excellent sleeper, in fact he was that good of a sleeper I had to set an alarm on my phone to make sure he fed every three hours because he just would not wake for it. Fast forward a few weeks when we established feeding shit hit the fan. He just wouldn't sleep of a night, he hated being put in his cot (which come to think of it is fair enough really) but I tried white noise apps, rocking him, lying next to him and nothing would work. I was shattered and that's why Pete started sleeping downstairs with him because I'm a horrible bitch when I'm tired. 

Don't get me wrong there are nights when he does sleep all the way through (I think, there must be) but there are many a night (usually when Pete is away) that he's awake all hours. The other night he woke up at 1am and didn't go back to sleep until 4.30am and this has happened on more than one occasion. It kills me because that's me awake then for the rest of the night, I'm normally disturbed by Pete coming home from work not long after Henry has gone back to sleep, the cats jumping about and then its 7am and both boys are awake again. 

George was an excellent sleeper. God he was such an easy baby. I remember clearly the first time he slept through the night, he was eight weeks and I woke up at 2am shouting "shit the baby hasn't had a bottle!" making Pete get out of bed and we stupidly woke him to feed him. You panic with your first don't you? Thank god I'm over all that now! Anyway, from then we never woke him for a bottle after that night and I felt like a new woman getting chunks of sleep. We did co-sleep with him for months but he would sleep through the night and the progression to the cot wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. He would go to bed at 7pm and wake at 7am. 

I was one of those parents that everyone hated. The one who was made to feel guilty that my child slept through the night. The one who didn't feel like they were allowed to mention that they had a good sleeper without being accused of being smug. The one who was old they were "lucky" despite establishing a routine. 

Now I'm the parent jealous of the good sleepers. I am very lucky that Pete does do bed time and he does sleep downstairs with the kids for the time being so unless he's working it doesn't fall on me but on those nights that it does, I struggle massively. No amount of coffee can save me. I end up being ready for bed around tea time because I just don't cope with no sleep. 

My goal for this week is to start decorating the bedrooms now they are 90% clear and as soon as that is done we can start sleep training again. I just can't wait to normalise our bed time routine and then hopefully Henry will start sleeping properly. 

Wish us luck!

Rachael xo