3-year old toddlers are...

... more difficult than two-year old toddlers;
... throwing the most terrible tantrums (Terrible Two's got nothing on this!)
... challenging;
... opinionated;
... knows better than us;...

You would think that I a talking about my daughter of 18, but No!
The Toddler is really giving us a hard time!

Maybe it is just the age?
Maybe it is her personality coming through?

Maybe she just needs the stimulation of school? (She is starting at her new school on Thursday! Can't be soon enough!)

And we are struggling with getting her to sleep at night. She is still awake! After a sleep drive, and her dad and me taking turns in bed with her. It s 10:30 pm and she is wide awake...(The effects of the holiday, I know!)

We are back at work tomorrow!

Send in the reinforcements! Please!

I want to make blog posts about my New Year resolutions, and I even want to take a look back at 2011...
As soon as I get some time!


Tell me it is not only our 3-year old who is giving us more grey hair?.

(Photo: Elise du Toit Photography)

Dear Toddler: SLEEP!

Hair bow and coffee

We do not hold this against you:

When you sometimes makes us do the musical chairs on our bed and yours, we do not hold it against you!
When we keep to a strict bedtime routine, but you still do not want to settle...
When we have to drive around at night to get you to sleep...
Even though you are happy to go to sleep with Mom, and later changes your mind, and want Dad to come and sleep with you...
When you do not want to go to sleep...
When we have to switch off all the lights, and you are forced to come to bed...
When you sleep in the middle between us, and we hold onto the edge of the bed, fighting for a bit of blanket...
When you have a bad dream, and do not stop crying in the night...
When you still want to sleep in in the mornings and we have to dress you upside down...
When Dad thinks we are never going to sleep again, although we only had a little bit of upheaval before twelve at night...

When we see that cute little face early in the mornings, we do not hold the sleep issues against you!
All is instantly forgiven!

Luckily we are a team working around the clock. When I give up in despair, your dad steps in! And when he gives up, I am ready to take on the next round!

(This too will pass! This too will pass!)

Related posts:
Mornings first photo at day care #20 - Monday morning sleepy
The toddler is down at 8

Chainsaw in the bedroom

I am a very good sleeper. I love sleeping, and have never struggled going to sleep. There is nothing that is more satisfying than SLEEP!

That is, until I got pregnant again, and since then I was more awake than I wanted. First with the uncomfortable pregnant belly, and then the baby and the nightly sleep deprivations...

I became aware of something else as well. Something which did not bother me at all before... There is a Chainsaw in the bedroom. It is real and it is very very LOUD! It makes sleeping very difficult! To drift away in that wonderful magical world of SLEEP... Very difficult!

I am lucky that as soon as I break into the threshold of sleep, I am away for the night.

To get there is the problem.

Ways I try to deal with the Chainsaw:

• Nudge or poke or stroke of the offending noise maker.

• Trying to straighten the cushion for another sleep position.

• Putting the cushion over my own ears.

• I have on occasion gone to sleep in the Toddler’s room. (It seems the Chainsaw does not bother her at all when she lies next to it!)

• When trying to verbalize the problem, I only get back that I have my own Chainsaw melodies... “sigh”

• On occasion I have tried to record it, and strangely it has worked very well. The offender wakes up, or the sounds are not that loud anymore...

The Toddler is growing up, and our broken sleep is getting less and less. With that of course the impact of the Chainsaw will grow less and less. There is real hope here! (Smile)

Until then, what other remedies do you suggest for dealing with snoring?

Day Care – a bright new year!

I am so glad I did not fire the day care last year! This year everything has changed, and I am leaving the toddler with a light heart every morning! She also goes with open arms to the new teacher!


The toddler has moved on to the next class. She is two now. The teacher speaks Afrikaans, and she is there already in the mornings. I can give her feedback about the toddler, and what to expect. When I go to pick up the toddler, I get feedback again about how the day went… It makes a world of difference in a working mother’s composure for the rest of the day.

Two seems to be a challenge this year! Did I mention the Terrible Tantrums! It is terrible and happens e-v-e-r-y five minutes! Eek!

“NEE!” (No!) is the favourite word of choice!

Now I also remember why my teen used to go to day care without any ponytails. We are struggling our arses off to get a ponytail in the toddler’s hair! I love the two ponies, but we are back to one pony in the mornings! (See Morning’s First photo at day care #7) Hats off to all you Moms who are able to sent daughters to school with hair all up and shiny with bows and clips! You are real magicians! We are trying to let the hair grow out without cutting a fringe. I have had it with fringe-cringe cover-ups after a visit to the hairdresser… (The teen, of course.)

I blame the New Year and a new class on the toddler being very insecure at night at this stage. We have done two nightly sleep drives in a row to get her to sleep, and she awakes again and screams at the top of her lungs. Very upset that we could have put her on her own in her bed! I definitely hope it is the reason, or we have a new sleeping pattern to overcome… I also want to get to bed by ten at night! Please, Toddler, please!

(Photos by her Grandfather James last week when Mieka stayed with them. This morning she told me: “Ouma kuier.” (Gran visit.) She loves going to them!)

Infant dyschezia translates into not sleeping

Mieka 4 days old (photo Debbie Rogers)

I remember those early days with our baby. From the first night she did not sleep for very long, and the crying was exhausting. Especially from suicide hour and later. Watching the clock goes from 12 to 1 to 2 to 3 to 4...
Friends of ours have got a little girl keeping them up now. They were lucky with their first-born, a boy. Not so with number two. Margot at Jou Ma se Blerrie Blog also has a Richie who goes into screaming marathons. I really feel for them.  I think we still feel the aftershocks of those early not sleeping...

Some calls it colicky babies! It’s definitely got something to do with the little stomachs. Because they wiggle and squirm while screaming at the top of their lungs. And there is not much we can do about it. Gripe water and rocking and breastfeeding and and...

Our paediatrician called Mieka’s "problem" infant dyschezia. A condition to do with the passing of wind, or before the passing of a soft bowel movement. It also gets diagnosed when the infant is healthy and has passed all of their milestones. We could see that Mieka was very uncomfortable after she had her meals. Wind and crying definitely went hand in hand. We called it the “poopies” and it kept us busy until she was about eight months old.

I do not hear it getting mentioned when talking about colicky babies. It is definitely something to consider when the little one screams and you can see that it has something to do with a bowel movement. Especially when it is soft bowel movements...

After we knew what the problem was, we had more sympathy and understanding for our little one. We used to jump on an exercise ball with her, and many a times she fell asleep on her dad’s shoulder... Somehow we made it through those nights. (Big smile!) I now can make lists of sleep tactics!

“This too has passed!”

The toddler is sleeping on her own bed...we hope!

We got the toddler her own bed sooner than I thought. I was planning to get her a bed in December, when she turns two. But Dries brought her the brand new bed through friends, and we hope it is going to be a great investment! An investment in sleep...

Up until now she has been sleeping in the camping cot in her room. When she was not sleeping with us...

We bought the sidebar yesterday, and Mieka spent her first night in her own big bed. Amazingly the Angelcare still works through the thick mattress. I put her down at seven last night, and she woke again at twelve. I could climb into her bed and breastfeed her back to sleep. Dries was running around fixing up a bottle (thanks Dries), but she would have nothing of it. And then I could quietly slip out to get a good night’s sleep myself!

She slept through until 6:30 this morning, and we finished the night with her sleeping the last hour with us.

I am all for the co-sleeping arrangement, but our double bed does not really help. It is too small, especially when the little body turns sideways in bed.

That was last night. Mieka did not want to have anything to do with sleeping in her bed tonight. I had to lie with her in our bed again tonight. Hopefully we can carry her to her bed later...

Good night! (Wishful smile)
Related post:
Sleep woes continue

What colour is Tuesday? Deep purple for sick

Blogland is full of it. Complaints of feeling overwhelmed, and feeling under the weather! It is this time of the year! It is between seasons; not yet spring, and we are “sick” (literally and figuratively) of IT.


I dragged myself to the doctor today. Why is it that we have no problem taking our kids to the doctor, but we neglect ourselves? If I don’t feel that I can’t get up, I don’t feel I am “worthy” to take myself to the doctor! But Dries has been nagging me for a couple of days. I think it is this cough that sounds like a fake cough. You can’t help to cough the irritating cough every couple of minutes! You are an even bigger irritation to yourself!

I got my antibiotics, and was planning to go to the office from there. The doctor stopped me. She says we have something – she thinks it is a South African thing – that thinks we can’t be sick. She sees it when people come back with more severe strains. One of the main reasons is that people do not get enough bed rest when sick.

She booked me off for two days! Now I just have to get over my guilty self...

Self-talk: I have not been sick for nearly two years. The work does not revolve around me. Luckily! I need to get better for the sake of Mieka who is still breastfeeding. She is also not yet 100% after I took her to the doctor on Friday.

Now off to bed! SLEEP! (Yay, that neglected thing!) Sometimes there are some blessings, even in being sick! I get permission to sleep!

What colour is your Tuesday? Mine is purple, for being under the weather, but getting to stay in bed.

Cuddle at bedtime or cry-it-out babies

The latest research published about babies and sleep has again made me aware that we have been doing it right! Huge sigh of relief! We have not been doing the crying method with regards to sleep. When Mieka cries, we attend to her. We stay with her, and I nurse her, until she falls asleep. It feels right! It feels like the humane thing to do! But we (even ourselves who sometimes put the own barrier on our thinking) get feedback, even when she was very small, that you should let them cry, or not get used to your arms. Or you will have a spoilt baby…


That standard question that you get asked, especially when they are small little babies: “Is she a good baby?” As opposed to “Naughty”? What is that? Because they are more awake, and demand more of your attention, then the assumption is that she is naughty? And when you are sleep-deprived because of nightly wakings, then you are somehow doing something wrong?

Maybe it is something that goes into default mode. Default mode to parenting styles which was the in-thing when we were growing up. I even made the “mistake”, for the sake of peace in my previous life, to let my first-born cry after she was put down. (The teen has got ONE valid reason already when she blames her parents one day at the psychologist.) I cringe now, but at the time I had to please a jealous husband…

Penn State researcher Douglas Teti “examined the role of emotional availability on infant sleep” by putting in cameras in the bedrooms of babies between one month to 24 months.

He found:

• Regardless of a family’s night-time routine: parents who were responsive and warm had fewer night wakings and an easier time drifting off. It makes the child feel safe and secure!
• Scepticism towards sleep training: 1. it does not work! 2. It affects the parent-child relationship itself.

Now I know why it didn’t feel right to pat the baby, NOT look at her, and leave the room, and let them cry for a while before going back in. Still not making eye-contact! (It’s cruel! – my personal view!)

It gets better! Even though we had a bad night last night where Mieka just would not settle (I blame the five o’clock nap she got in the car), she mostly goes to sleep within 20 minutes when she is healthy.

All this too will pass, and we will definitely miss that small little body throwing her legs across us when lying next to us in bed…

Looking at the stars

The blocked nose of the past few days made it very difficult for the toddler to go to sleep. More than the usual! Even breastfeeding did not do the trick; because she had to come up for air more than she was able to drink! The flu is a bummer!

She was crying and putting up a fight to go to sleep last night. Out of sure desperation I drew the curtains and blinds and told her we were going to look at the stars!

In suburbia there is not much to see through the haze of lights and smog. We could distinguish a faint glimmer of some stars above the silhouettes of the nearby houses in the complex. We did see two planes going by as well...

It was five minutes at the most, and I heard the faint snore of a blocked little nose... Mieka was gone for the night! I called Dries to come and look at the sweet figure lying on the bed. Very precious!

Dries said tonight he missed her in our bed last night! (We don’t know what we want, do we?)

I have found another tactic to get her to sleep: Looking at stars! Definitely worth trying again!

Sick out

Trying to take the nappy off the teddy,
patience very far away

When the little one is sick, Every-Thing comes to a standstill! E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! Shew-eeeh! It is rough! And we have only got one toddler...


All our plans for the weekend were cancelled because of sickness! Not because of our toddler who was sick, but because of the other parties involved. In the end it turned out to be a good thing. Toddler is “Miss Difficult” herself! Nothing seems to be pleasing or to her liking! When something falls on the floor, she goes into “Princess”-mode, and goes “Uh-uh-uh!!” until someone picks it up, or we suffer a MAJOR tantrum upheaval! (Not that we “dance” to her every whim...)

She’s not feeling well! We KNOW THAT! We FEEL THAT!

My Mom looked after her on Friday, and said that she kept them very busy. When she traced the outline of her hand on a paper, she had to do it again. And again. And again... Uh, uh, uh!

The fever has finally broken! We are only struggling with the blocked and runny nose. It had us up until 12 last night, because she could not drink or sleep properly. Hopefully she will sleep in her bed again tonight, because my back is broken, and Hubby’s back is broken. She sleeps on 90%of our bed, and we hang on to dear life! The double bed is way too small!

We went to the movies yesterday, and at one stage I thought that we did not fully think it through. The toddler was saying “Klaar!” (Finish) when the previews were showing already. She was walking around in the isle, and moving from my lap to her sister’s lap to Dad’s lap! Shrek is a very very very long movie! Luckily the storyline was not bad! We made it to the end! Huge achievement!

We have also been collecting a variety of containers with food. We try different kinds of food/snacks/tit-bits to get her to eat, but when Little Missy is sick, nothing seems to her liking! We actually got excited when she ate her first spoonful of lasagne!

We survived the last four days! Well done to us! (Huge smile of relief!)

Tiny Tumbles:
exercises with teddies (going to the Teddy Bear Clinic)
(Mieka was not her happy self this Saturday)

Related posts:

Our little toddler is sick

List of tactics to get them to sleep

List of tactics to get them to sleep

Hubby is sick! Toddler is sick! THE FLU! They are a sorry bunch here! I am ignoring that irritating scratch in my throat. I was lying next to the toddler last night; on the ground (Take Note!), when I was thinking how many tactics we use to get them to sleep. ANY-THING, even something as sleeping on the floor, will sound a bit crazy when someone tells you about it. But not when you are into desperate measures for sleep.

I was reading Maxabella’s post at Real Bloggers United about her sleep deprived years and that she found that Patience was her partner. I was feeling very smug. It seems they had a much harder time than we are having...

Just for interest sake. I was sleeping on the floor in Mieka’s room, because Dries has BAD BAD flu and he was in our bed. Mieka did not want me to put her down in her cot. So I made us a bed on the floor, and spent the night there. Not very comfortable! I was cold the whole night, while she was burning up with fever... The things you do for sleep!

The tactics we use to get them to sleep (tactics that work):

• Breastfeeding (one of my favourites);
• Bottle;
• Rocking them in your arms (although it is not one of Mieka’ favourites);
• Sitting on an exercise ball while rocking them (used when Mieka was smaller.);
• Walking with her on your shoulder while busy in the house (tactic of Dries);
• Driving around in the car;
• Wearing them in a pouch;
• Pushing them in a pram. Back and forth, or going for a walk;
• Lying next to them on the bed until they fall asleep;
• Looking at stars. (added on 2-10-2010)

Any other suggestions?

(Notice that we don’t do the cry out method.)

Sleep woes continue

I have been reading Tasneem at MumDrum's sleep woes. I was patting myself on the back, saying that we have it a little bit easier. Not so!


As soon as we start to think that the toddler has a sleeping routine and that she is sleeping right through, everything changes! Murphy’s Toddler’s Law?

Most recent sleep stories:

- I sit with little Missy Toddler in her room, reading a book, and then breastfeeding her until she falls asleep.

- I try to put her in her bed.

- The legs start kicking, and she arches her back. (Swear-worthy moments!)

- In the end she ends up in our bed – for the whole night!

- I am much smarter now. I start the bedtime routine in our bed, and as soon as she is asleep, I carry her to her bed. (I think I have a 10% success rate at the moment. Sigh!)

- Hubby usually takes over at nine when I struggle to get her to sleep (from half past seven or eight at night). I miss him terribly tonight – he is not here, and I was not able to do anything else! (How do the single moms cope? I know, I ask this on a regular basis. You rock, single moms!)

- I do not have a problem with our toddler sleeping with us. But it is extremely uncomfortable hanging for dear life on the side of the bed, usually with only half or a fraction of the blankets covering us. The rest she kicks off as soon as we place it over her!

- Last night was extremely taxing. At one in the morning we were taking her temperature. Yes, she had a bit of a fever, and we had to put in a suppository. The tenth day flu/fever after the MMR injection?

- My most favourite wish at the moment – to sleep, and sleep, and SLEEEEEP!

- I know we will experience this most wonderful, precious gift of sleep somewhere in the future! Hang in there, Powerwoman!

(Photo: Mieka at the hockey game on Saturday where the teen played at her school.)

The pout

Lately the toddler has been walking around with a pouty mouth. She pulls her mouth into pout while she is busy playing or calling the dog, or mermaid-speaking... Luckily it is not an expression of unhappiness! (I hope!) Maybe it is the teeth; that same teeth that get blamed for everything when our Precious One is feeling out of zinc.


Like now! She’s sick again. Only three weeks after the last bout of upper respiratory infection. It is the same slimy stories again... We are getting sick and tired of it! She is coughing with a runny nose, wheezy chest, and vomiting because of all the phlegm. We are exhausted already, because the fever rears its ugly head during the night!

I am beginning to think that the day care plays a big role with Mieka getting sick on a regular basis. Woking mother complaint, again! But we will just have to deal with it. I remember that the teen also got sick quite a lot, but when she started with school, she had built up an immense immunity. She did not get sick during the important school years.

Powerwoman, and Hubby, will just have to deal with it in the meantime. Luckily we share in the sickness duties as well. (Thank you, thank you, thank you, Hubby!!)

We went on a real date today. We dropped Mieka off with my parents, and the teen went to see the boyfriend playing rugby. We went to see the popular Avatar. It has been showing for ages (and ages), but we eventually got there. In 3D! It was a blast. The last time I saw something in 3D, we got the paper goggles. Today we got real plastic goggles! (Pandora makes earth look bleak in comparison. We GOT the environmental lessons as well! Amen!)

Afterwards we said to each other: We loved going to the movies on our own, but maybe we should have gone home to sleep... that elusive sleep!
Thumbs for sleeping tonight! (Wishful smile!)

More sleeping woes

We need some sleep! We had a terrible night the previous night! I posted the Wordless Wednesday today just to remind me of the angel she is when she is sleeping. (Smile)
I got the little toddler into bed at around eight, but she woke up every hour after that. At one stage she was walking around our bed, very high spirited! Nothing more depressing than a wide awake toddler after 12 at night! AARghh!
She spent most of the night in our bed, with our bums hanging off the bed. I finally put her back into her bed at 4:50. We are supposed to get up at 5...
She is sleeping now in our bed, and thumbs crossed that tonight will go much better... We are still not sure what is bothering her.
The things you do (tick off) at night to get the toddler to go back to sleep:
- Breastfeeding (works 99% of the time);
- Make sure baby is covered and not cold;
- Check/change the nappy – just in case (most of the times not a problem);
- Try the dummy (which the toddler is not very fond of);
- Make a bottle (just in case);
- Take her into bed with us;
- Turn on a light in the passage (maybe she gets a bit apprehensive of the dark?);
- Put on some cream against eczema (in case it itches);
- Anything...

Sleep! Goodnight!

The toddler and instructions

A great milestone has been reached. The toddler understands enough to be able to perform relatively simple instructions or tasks.
A favourite is throwing things into the dustbin. (I can just imagine we are going to search for our things from now on in the dustbin...)
The best is the fact that she is willing to do it over and over again.
“Give the dog a snack.” (Also a favourite activity)
“Take this to your dad.”
“Bring the book/toy/bottle.”
I am amazed at how much she understands, even though the communication depends on the pointy finger and grunts...
The more we are able to keep her occupied (read HAPPY), the more we are able to get in a bit of rest. (I love this phase – hope it will last for while? Before they notice that it is not that cool to do what your parents instruct you to do? (Smile)
Now, if we can only give an instruction with regards the sleeping...
We went out of our way last Saturday to go and buy a duvet at Tree House, a wonderful baby room decoration shop. I saw the same type of duvet at a friend’s house. Mieka has been sleeping very well since Saturday night. The duvet is light, but also warm. It helps because she seems to keep it over her during the night, where the rest of her blankets invariable landed up at the bottom of her feet.
(Thumbs crossed!)
(The toddler is fourteen and a half months)

(Photo: Mieka with the dog last night)

Related posts:

14 months

13 months

The personality of the toddler

The toddler is walking

Powerwoman is on top of The Quickening

I need to step out into the fast lane, because it feels like it is going way too fast for me! Am I the only one, or are there other people out there also feeling as if everything is going much quicker than before?
I heard (have no idea where) that there is a quickening in time, but maybe it is only in my mind?
January is speeding by, and I haven’t yet started with my new year’s resolutions. My gym bag was packed this morning, but when I opened my car boot at work this morning…no gym bag. Sabotaging myself?
It also feels as if I can’t get up to speed at work as well. Something to do with the toddler waking us up every hour of the night? She has a bit of a cough.
But enough of the whining!
Powerwoman is here, in 2010! I am ready for you.
See me speeding by in the fast lane!

Camping with the toddler

Great way to start the New Year! On holiday; camping and swimming and driving around in the bush with family. It feels like we have signed out of real life for a couple of days and our biggest worry is how to put away our food. Baboon troubles...
The camping is proving to be a big challenge with regards to the toddler. The camping cot came with us, but as soon as we put her into it in the evenings, she starts to kick vigorously. She has been sleeping with us on the mattresses in the tent, and we are hanging with our bums on the floor, trying to get a bit of sleep. The fresh air did not change the little missy’s sleeping patterns. Most probably it is also the strange surroundings...
Luckily we are spending our days at the family’s chalet at Kwa-Maritane where they have a small swimming pool. We are the lucky fish! (Thanks Anton and Ronel (my sister); for coming to holiday from London and organising and inviting us with them.)
And there are the grandparents and family members who walk with Mieka with the pointy finger! She keeps (us)/them very busy! I am on page 89 of my book – a big accomplishment for 2010 already. This book I am going to finish this year!
Tonight is our last night camping at Manyane, and then we are moving in with my sister and her husband into a chalet in Kwa-Maritane. We haven’t camped in quite a while (Year of the Baby), but these last few days have wetted our appetites for more. One of our resolutions: to camp more often in our glorious weather! We just need to get much more organised with the way we pack and do our camping. We are spending most of our time looking for stuff we know we brought with us, but can’t remember where we put it in... (The joy of camping! Big Smile!)

The baby is a toddler

The baby is a toddler already! One year olds are not babies anymore. I feel sad to realize that my baby is not a baby anymore. I’ll have to change my status now. I am a mother of a toddler, and not a baby.
Where are the BRAKES?
She is one bundle of inquisitiveness at the moment. When she opens her eyes, it starts with the pointing (yes, it seems the pointy finger are going to stay for a while). Points, points, points… and when there is no reaction from us, it is scream, scream, scream… VERY exhausting!
She is becoming more mobile by the day. She stands and moves along the furniture or whatever she can hold onto. She has given her first few steps already. The crawling is not an option anymore. The crab creeping works very well for the little lady. It has a bright side as well; I can keep on putting on dresses, because with the bum shuffling the dresses does not get caught up underneath her knees. And she looks very cute in a dress.
Eating has become difficult - for us as the parents, not to her. No more the easy way out with foods from jars. We have to think of finger foods for her to eat. She just closes her mouth and turns away (with a look of disgust) when we bring a spoon near her.
“I am not a baby, Mom/Dad!! I can eat on my own!”
She mostly uses her hands, and the back of the spoons and forks to pummel the food.
Sleeping has also not been mastered by the parents. We are still doing the nightly rounds. When I compare it with the first few days and weeks, it is now a breeze. (Powerwoman will not complain!)
She has a new thing; she starts to kick her legs vigorously when we try to put her into her bed. A tantrum type of manoeuvre? Or is something bothering her? Bad, bad teeth!! (?) She also wakes up screaming, but with the eyes still closed. She wants to sleep, but something is out of whack. We need that baby translator badly!
The hair is starting to grow. Not long, and we will be able to put in the ribbons…
Hold on to the reigns; our baby is a toddler!

(Photo: Mieka was not impressed with the musical water fountain at Silverstar Casino last night.)

The baby and eating

The baby has been eating very well since she started to eat. But now The Missy wants to do it by herself. It is very difficult to be creative the whole time about which foods to give her. We try to give her the same vegetables and meat that we are eating, cut into smaller pieces. I still try (that’s the only word that works here) to give her Purity or mashed foodies (e.g. avocado, bananas) at her mealtimes. But mostly she just shakes her head. I sometimes get something in when I can distract her with a plaything, but most of the times it is a shut mouth.
She loves sitting with us, and eating her own food, but I am not sure that she gets in a lot of it. As I have said, Petite Peu the dog, vacuums everything up that falls from her high chair. We catch her sneaking the food off between her legs, or over her shoulder. She then peers over the side of the chair with her mouth full of food, while biting on the side of the chair (see photo). We take this hook-on chair with us where-ever we go, and most of the time I am embarrassed about the food stains on the rim of the chair. It is never clean even when I have cleaned it!
She also tries to poke the food with the back of the spoon or the fork, or squash everything in her fists. Not for the squeamish! We just say to each other, “don’t look!”, and then wipe up afterwards! (This too will pass. This too will pass.)
We had a difficult Sunday. Mieka was not a happy baby, and we still don’t know why. Being difficult, and screaming the whole day. At 8pm we did our first (I am very proud for caving in only now) drive with her. We had a good laugh when the whining had the sound of a wind-down battery. It took five minutes and she was gone! Maybe we should have tried it a long time ago? But she still woke up after that. Is it the flu, the immunizations of Friday, earache, the tantrums? Dries and I are The Walking Dead today…
I have a suggestion for Google: a baby translator. Need I say more?

Sleeping in separate rooms

The baby has been sleeping in her own bedroom very soon after we brought her home. I was open to the idea of her sleeping in our room, but it did not seem practical to us. I was reading a very shocked blog post by Lisa who cannot understand how the baby can sleep in a separate room than the parents.
We found that we wanted to read and watch tv etc. after the baby went to sleep, and that we bothered her. Luckily we got an Angelcare gadget from friends of ours. We are still using it at nearly a year. We can hear every little peep that Mieka makes, but we know that she is sleeping in peace. As well as us! We also know that the Angelcare will start beeping if she should stop breathing. That gives us peace of mind! Definitely a gadget that is worth to invest in!
Also, the one that do not have to get up at night, can carry on sleeping uninterrupted. And Mieka sleeps in her own dark room which is apparently also good for sleeping well.
In my previous life with the X (cancelled one), he was adamant that the baby had to sleep in her own room. He was jealous of the baby and the time I spent with her. (Yes, unbelievable!) But we did it without Angelcare at that stage. Arnia started to sleep through the night very quickly (about two months). Because of that I also knew that a baby would be okay in her own room. Maybe it is my age, or maybe Dries who is not jealous of the baby and not demanding that I let her cry. But we are not very good with letting Mieka cry. Maybe that is the reason why she is still not sleeping through the night?
But the separate bedrooms work very well for us. I think that should be the key. What works the best for your own situation?