Tuesday 15 March 2011

Hello! I'm awake!

Wow! We got some sleep last night. Which is rare and unusual and rather wonderful. I was still up with the Lumpling between about 3am and 4.30am, but that was it. And the sun is shining, so I feel rather jolly and invincible. For once, I didn't just crawl back into bed as soon as I put him down for his morning nap, I actually got up (GASP!). And had a shower (WONDERS!). And put on clothes (YARP!). Unfortunately, I didn't manage to do any of this before the postman came, bringing me parcels, but hey ho. The poor man is used to my gigantaboobs looming at him of a morning from their woefully inadequate confines of a Primark vest top.

So. I am here. And... um...

Oh yes. To what do we think we owe this magnificent improvement in sleep? Quite possibly, shutting a door.

Yes, radical, I know. I have contacted publishers and they are very excited. The Shut The Door Sleep Method. It'll kick Gina Ford's arse, let me tell you.

Lumpy's room is just across the hall from our bedroom. Our bedroom is very small, so is his. The hall is very narrow. Basically, he is virtually in the bed with us. Since he was born, I've become an extraordinarily light sleeper and will leap from the bed at his slightest snort, squawk, fart, or bestial growl (we get lots of those). When he was actually in the room with us this didn't seem to matter quite so much as I'd work out whether he was really awake without actually getting out of bed. Now, though, I have to actually get out of bed, walk across a room, and go into another room. This wakes me up quite a lot more than staying in bed did, strangely enough. More importantly, I often end up waking up Lumpy by blundering in and poking him, to try and find out if he's awake. This is somewhat counterintuitive, but my powers of logic and quietness at four in the morning are not at their peak.

When we first moved Lumpy into his room we propped the door open, all the better to hear the snorts, grunts, and meeps. Unfortunately, this meant we usually woke him up when we went blundering to bed (we like a bit of blundering in our house), so we eventually started pulling the door to. But, essentially, we didn't shut it. And then, last night, in an effort to stop me racing in and disturbing our poor child the minute he dared to make any sort of noise, we finally did. And, wonder of wonders, we all seemed to sleep better for it. I still heard him the minute he cried, and got to rush in and start poking him to my heart's delight. But I wasn't woken up by every innocent night noise. It was marvellous.

Of course, now I've blogged about it, no doubt he'll scream his guts out every 40 minutes all night long from now till November. Ho hum.

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