Oh Heavenly...

Oh the wonder of a child that sleeps through the night for two nights in a row! I feel we have finally turned a corner in the life of our precious boy. As mentioned previously, we haven't been sleeping well lately. Say, for the past fourteen months. Things had been particularly horrid of late, with night waking up to four or five times, only sleeping in our bed, needing to be fed to sleep. We have all been exhausted, and to be honest, a little stroppy.

A few weeks ago, John was (creepily, if you ask me) watching Alex sleep one night, and noticed that he was often hitting his head and limbs on the sides of the cot, which then woke him up. We decided to look into cot bumpers, somewhat trepidatiously on my part, due to the big no-no they have from SIDS and Kids. Nonetheless, I couldn't be convinced to part with $100 for a piece of foam that barely covered two sides of the cot. I hence decided to sew my own...

This was ambitious for me, being that my last sewing efforts were in year eight home ec, and they were, quite frankly, shite. However, a cot bumper proved to be quite straight-forward, even without a pattern. Stay tuned for my how-to guide and photos of the end result.

Anyway, the cot bumpers are almost done, except for some prettying up I need to finish, and they have been a revolution. I put them in his cot on Wednesday, and that night, he slept through the night for the first time since he was about two months old (when he slept through the night twice in a row). And again, last night, he slept through. I barely know what to do with myself.

Of course, we have also made some other changes which I'm sure have been of assistance. We've recently switched to one sleep a day, instead of two. I no longer breastfeed him at night; he now enjoys a cup of milk. I read to him and sing a few songs before we head to his cot. We have started telling him that it's "almost sleepy time" an hour beforehand. We try not to hype him up too close to bed time (Daddy's mostly to blame for this...).

So life feels so easy right now. I know I shouldn't count my chickens or eggs or anything yet, but I can't help it.

The sad part is that I have now inadvertently completely weaned Alex from breastfeeding! I meant to have John take a picture of him feeding before we reached this point, but it has kind of happened without me realising. I believe we have gone about two or three days without a breastfeed now, but as I said, it kind of happened without me realising, so I can't remember when I last fed him.

I will miss that special bond we had, but onto the next phase, I guess. On a bonus note, no more nanna bras! I actually fit into my old bras again, and as a result of losing about six kilos in the last two months, I actually fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes. Woohoo! I still have another kilo until I'm pre-Alex weight, and would still like to lose another seven after that, but happy with the hard work paying off right now.

So hoping tonight will be another fabulous night's sleep!