Back in Australia with major sleep issues

We put Sofia to bed at 8.30-9pm… It went ok although Sofia seemed to need a but more affection before bed then usual here at home. At 10.30 I went to bed whilst Mike and Dave played games. I was about to put my phone away when Sofia started crying. I tried the crying it out method, but Sofia just seemed to cry worse and worse. I had smelled her and thought all was ok, but decided to check visually as well. It wasn’t very well lit and I ended up putting my finger in a big pile of poo in her nappy. Poor girl – so I changed that. I then tried to rock her to sleep, but no go. At 1.30!!! I finally managed to get her back to sleep!

Then at 3am Sofia woke up crying again. This time breastmilk was not making her tired, nor rocking her in my arms. She did seem tired, but like she had ants up her bum ;). She kept squirming, and every time I thought she was falling asleep all of a sudden big jerking movements and eyes open again. I was feeling exhausted and I can’t imagine what she was going through… I ended up climbing into bed with her – thinking I hope the bed doesn’t cave in… Hoping I could get a little bit of sleep and that she’d join me. That didn’t happen. She used me as a prop and spent the next hour or so getting up to standing position, sitting back down, up, down, up, down etc. At 5.15am she finally laid down and tried to sleep… changed positions a few times, but seemed to get frustrated. She sat up with a complaining noise and looked at me and I knew… I was taking up too much space, so I got back out… and she laid back down. Before I had got my stuff together she’d already fallen asleep. So I went back to bed as well.

In the morning Mike got up and went to work, and Sofia was sleeping real good so I kept sleeping. I got up at 9am and she was still sleeping. I talked to Dave and Aileen for about an hour, and then went into Sofia’s room and opened the curtain so sunlight got in and she woke up. We then said goodbye to Dave and Aileen and wished them a safe flight and good times in Melbourne.

I fed Sofia and then we played. We were both so tired. After 2 hours if could see Sofia was struggling so I slowly got her ready for bed (to drag it out a little bit). After putting her to bed I wrote the blog for a bit and then decided to cuddle the dog… and I fell asleep too. I slept for 2 hours!!! When I woke her up she’d been sleeping for 3 hours! Ops…

I decided then to keep her up until her bedtime – another 4 hours. She had a late lunch, then we played and she practiced standing up and crawling. She is really getting good at it and am starting to move about whilst standing and holding herself up. Sofia for the first time picked up a ball and pushed it through the hole on her entertainment unit walker thing. We crawled on the floor and walked around with Pablo close. Tomorrow we will try for longer. Pablo likes licking her way too much, but overall I think he did well for a first try. We facetime’d with Mormor. That was fun – she seemed to recognise her. Afterwards we had dinner and then nighttime routine. Sofia was hard to get to sleep, I had to stand there until she was asleep, but she was very tired and it didn’t take long. 7.15pm she was asleep. Then she woke up at 9.30pm. First Mike got her back to sleep and she woke up straight after, then I got her back to sleep and she woke up straight after. She just kept screaming… Can this be ‘just’ because of the change in timezones? Sofia kept screaming on and off until 4am!!!! I am freakin’ exhausted :(. I tried everything I could think of to get her to sleep. In the end I ended up laying her back down every time she got up and wait for the tantrums to end, and finally stand there and watch her until she’s finally asleep…. She turned to see if I was still there 5 times before she fell asleep properly. Tomorrow must be better or I won’t survive.