Friday 15 January 2010

Cries in the night

Angus is now at nursery. Over the course of this week he had sessions that gradually increased in length, leading up to him being in for the full day yesterday and today. He seemed very happy there yesterday so long may that continue.

As we have decided Angus doesn't need a night-time feed and that there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him when he wakens up crying, other than he wants, and is now used to getting, a cuddle, we are now practising controlled crying at the suggestion of the Health Visitor. She reckons Angus expects to be brought into the bed and that we need to break the habit, which could take a couple of weeks. So Sharon has gone through at his first cries the last two nights, which have been around 1.30am and slept in the room with him while he has cried himself out. He woke repeatedly last night and can take the best part of an hour to cry himself out but Sharon has held firm, waiting until he has finished crying in the morning before feeding him after 7am. I've taken to the wax ear plugs once more but they'll be put to the test tonight when I sleep in with him. Hopefully we can endure and Angus will finally settle into longer sleeps.

Rowan has been as chatty as ever, although he maybe has a wee tummy bug and is a bit lost without his pal, Paps. His evening tantrums now stem from not getting to play on the Wii, which he doesn't actually play on anyway; he just watches his brothers. The last couple of nights he has instructed me "don't close my door over because my heart will be broken." His ability to trot out phrases like that always amuse, even when you are mad with him for not doing what he is told.

Finn spent all yesterday with his school sweatshirt on back to front and has gone beyond that today by putting on all his clothes back to front and refusing to change. This is so Finn. His reading is coming on well. I'd like to encourage him to read for pleasure on his own.

I was looking at photos from our trip to Nafplio back in May 2004 yesterday wondering how Sean, that little 18-month old blond boy, our only child, had got to seven, with missing teeth and three younger brothers, in the blink of an eye. It is hard work at the moment but we need to get some of the fun back with the boys else they'll be all grown up and we'll miss it.

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