We're Back!

Why hello there loyal reader types! Flynn and I are finally back from Tresillian and, i got to admit, i'm feeling pretty good. I thought i might feel a little apprehensive coming home, away from the nurses and the encouraging words of other mums, but i'm feeling confident that we're going to have our whole new routine downpat in no time at all. Granted, Flynn didnt have an afternoon nap this afternoon but, after a 6 hour car trip home, you cant blame him for feeling a little muddled. So what did we learn at this "sleep school "?

* Nothing is miraculously fixed overnight - at Flynns age, it can take up to 6 weeks for a new routine to be learned and settled into comfortably ( not the usual 2 suggested by most literature i've read ).
* Consistency is key. This one i already knew but found hard to stick to, especially when i was trying to get him to sleep when i was home alone.
* Watch the clock. It may feel like they've been screaming " for ages " and that they've been in bed long enough. In reality, its probably only been about 10 minutes.
* Bub should be having, at the very least, a 1 hr nap. If he wakes before that ( say, after 45 minutes ) i need to leave him in his cot ( going back in to check and calm ) for another FULL SLEEP CYCLE. Which is another 45 minutes....sometimes it takes that long for a baby to fall back to sleep.
* Dont stand and pat your baby until he falls asleep - be hands on to calm him down, but once he's calm, leave the room. Patting til he's asleep might help him drift off, but it doesnt teach him to drift off ON HIS OWN.
* No matter how hard they cry and how much it hurts, they will stop sometimes. Eventually. Really, i promise.
* Also, the whole " baby cant self settle " thing is just bad habit, not bad mothering. Phew - so i can stop torturing myself over that one.

Honestly? I think it was a definate help going down there. Yes, they (generally ) use a controlled crying technique but i was ok with that because i'd tried everything else and nothing had worked. Plus, its not a horrible, parental abandonment type of controlled crying - its reading tired signs and listening to the cry and going back in at short intervals to calm bub down and reassure him he's tired and needs to go to sleep. Its the same kind of thing i was trying to do at home, i just needed a bit of guidance. I'm grateful to the nurses for sharing their knowledge with me, for answering my stupid questions, and for calming ME down when i cracked and burst into tears on the first day.

I'm actually looking forward to the challenge of implementing and sticking with the new routine ( which is only slightly tweaked from our old one ) and seeing how long it takes to be entirely successful. With no afternoon nap its only taken Flynn 10 minutes to fall asleep for the night so thats a good start!

We're Here!

We're here, at Tresillian, finally.
I got the call at 12:30pm yesterday ( Sunday ) saying that they had a spot for me at 9am in the morning - could i be there? Well it may be a 5 and half drive from where i live but yes i could! I madly washed and ried some clothes Flynn and i would need, packed our bags - hoping that i didnt forget anything important - and we hit the road by 4pm. An overnight sleepover at Micks aunties place and we were admitted at 9am this morning, as promised.

I'm not sure how i'm feeling right now. There's no denying that you are in a hospital - hospital rooms, hospital bathrooms and, perhaps worst of all, hospital food - so my immediate reaction to the place was " what the hell am i doing here? its so depressing! " but now that we've settled in a bit, its not so bad. The nurses so far have been wonderful, and the other mums i've run into are good for a chat. They have great trashy magazines, and a vending machine so i can supplement the hospital meals with good stuff - like chocolate ( which, sadly, means that OS:M2 will not be so much of a success this week ). I had a little meltdown around lunchtime, trying to get Flynn to take a nap that he wouldnt normally take, and the nurses were great about it. I know its going to be a long, hard week, especially away from Mick, but i also know that i can do it.

I can do it, and i will. Just watch me!

We're In!

So i had my interview via telephone with Tresillian ( a sleep clinic for babies/toddlers ) and... we've been accepted. Thank Gawd! We've actually been put on the urgent list so hopefully we can be admitted within a week. Only thing is it will be on short notice so they may ring me Monday ( for example ) and ask me to be there ready to start on Tuesday - which means packing a bag for Flynn and I and hightailing it the almost 6 hr drive to Sydney. On my own, most likely - Mick doesnt think he will be able to come because of the short notice thing ( he's a truck driver so he may be away in another town when the call comes ).

I'm happy that we're finally going to get some help, but also a little upset with myself that i was too stubborn and proud to ask for help earlier. I mean i have asked for some help - we've been liasing with our community health nurse, and family and friends have been pestered for suggestion for months. But it was my stupid pride, my " I can do this by myself " attitude, that kept me from seeking proper  help. I just didnt want to admit that i couldnt be the Supermum who knew everything about her baby and could everything perfectly the first time around. I wanted so badly to be able to say " yea, we had trouble sleeping, but i fixed that! ". But i cant - or at least not yet.

Sometime in the next week or two i will be able to say " yea, we had trouble sleeping, but i fixed that... with some help ". I want to be more confident as a mum, because even though i know my son is happy and healthy for the most part, and that i'm awesome and some mummy stuff, this whole no-sleeping jazz really put a dent in my belief in my mothering abilities. So fingers crossed we get in sooner rather than later and Mr Flynn and I ( oh, and Mick, yea him too ) can get back to some good sleep and good times!

I've Gone And Done It

So - I've gone and done it. After many months of sleepless nights, noisy attempts at controlled crying and parental presence method, of nursing to sleep and sleeping with little feet in my back..... i've applied to spend a week at Tresillian*. I've posted half a dozen times about Project SleepyTime, my hard fought battle to get my son to be able to self settle, to fall asleep and stay asleep, without needing me to drag my sorry, sleepy, scary-haired slef out of bed to help him. Well, its just not working. We had a 3 good weeks of sleep but i cant attribute it to anything i did - i tried every tip and trick in the book for two and half months with very little improvement and then one night Flynn just decided to sleep for 6 hours straight before waking up. He did that every night for 3, maybe 4 weeks and then he got a fever and a virus and our whole good sleep thing collapsed. I've tried everything over the last two and half weeks to get him back on track: we kept up with the music that had worked before but it had no effect this time; i patted and stroked and sshed and sung lullabies; we even put a nightlight on in his room, which has gained us maybe an extra hour or two of sleep.

But Sunday night was the last straw. Flynn didnt fall asleep ( and stay asleep ) until 11pm - Mick and i had been nursing and patting etc since 7pm - and woke at 1am.... and decided he wasnt going back to sleep til 6am. 5 hours he stayed awake. He wasnt crying the whole time, he just didnt want to go to sleep. He wanted to play and watch tv and snuggle. I took him for a 45 minute drive, towards the end of which he fell asleep. I got him out of the car carefully but as soon as his head touched his pillow - bam! Awake and crying. It was 4am in the morning and i'd had enough - i left him in his bed crying and went back to my own bed. My heart said i shouldnt leave him there crying, my head said maybe it was too cold, or he'd poke his arm through his cot bars and be uncomfy but my body was so exhausted that i fell asleep...and i didnt wake til 6am. And Flynn was still crying. I'd left my baby to cry for 2 straight hours while i slept. Thats when i decided pride be damned, we needed help.

I feel like i've given up, like the worst mum in the world. I feel like i've done something so drastically wrong that i cant get my baby to have healthy, happy sleep and now i've just thrown in the towel. Thrown my hands up and said " here, someone else, you deal with it ". I know in reality thats not how it is but thats what it feels like. Failure. Yuck.

So i've gotten a referral from my lovely health nurse, she helped me fill in and submit the forms. Now i just have to ring the facility on Friday and speak to a nurse to make arrangements ( i suppose ). I'm hoping i get in before i go back to work otherwise i'll have to delay returning to my job, which will mean a delay in finances - and the last thing i need on top of no sleep is to go broke. Wish me luck ladies...

* For international readers - or anyone who doesnt know - Tresillian is a baby and family health service. I'm hoping to spend a week at one of their sleep clinics, where they'll teach Flynn how to sleep again, and me how to help him.