My post baby body – week 15

I decided this week to try to get my baby into a routine as he was still not sleeping through the night – and was waking 3 times a night and I was desperate for sleep.  Also I had seen lots of friends this week who kept telling me that I had to get into him into s routine otherwise I was setting myself up for more pain.  So – I picked up the Gina Ford book that a friend had given me months ago and decided to attempt her feeding and sleeping routines as I couldn’t face doing any controlled crying in the night where people kept telling me it would take 4 nights to get him to self settle and sleep through – the first night he may cry for 45mins but by the last night it would only be 5 mins.
Anyway, back to Gina Ford. The first problem that was apparent was that a routine stressed me out and her routine was very strict.  If we didn’t do something ‘on time’, I feared it will would all go to pot.  If I needed to go out but it was in the “sleep time” or “feed time” I couldn’t and that stressed me out and all in all I hated the monotony of it all.  The second issue was that Kai was a very light sleeper so only slept for half hour stints in the day then would wake up so the ‘2 hour lunch time nap’ didn’t happen with us.  Plus admittedly, I have got him into bad sleeping associations of falling asleep on me or in his pram and this doesn’t work so well on the routine…. But I did try for 5 days but it didn’t make a scrap of difference to his sleep at night and he was still up 3 times a night so after 5 days I have given up and have gone back just to doing whatever and I think it definitely suits us both best.   But trying the routine definitely taught me to get him into a more set feeding pattern and to ensure he gets used to having naps at similar times in the morning and afternoon and it did highlight the fact that he can’t self settle which is why he wakes so much in the night – so I need to find a way to teach him to do that – but that can be next weeks task!
Weight loss wise I lose 600grams which I was pleased with as other than doing my twice daily smoothies I didn’t have much time for exercise this week as I had been so busy and tired.  Kai got his first cold at the end of the week too which saw him very sniffly and coughing as well as waking up every hour on the hour and as I write this I too am feeling very sick and I wish I had someone to rock me to sleep!!  But as I don’t I will have to settle for lots of fluid, lots of garlic and keeping my nutrients up and hope that one day in the near future I get some sleep……