The sleep blog

(Eliza falls asleep while playing with my tube of sunscreen....maybe she continues the play in her dream...)

Sleep for our babies, as every mummy knows, is really important.
Sleep for ourselves, as every mummy knows, is half important.

For the mummies part first...sleep for ourselves, most of the time, is when baby sleeps. So counting that most mummies (who do not have helpers), can sleep when baby sleeps, we sleep lesser than our babies on the whole. Plus if, like me, i go on and catch up with my 101 stuff i want to do after Eliza sleeps. 101 stuff to do = sort out the mess in the house, facebook, reading new/blog/resources online, watching tv (like xiao niang re..if Eliza sleeps before 10pm), talking to Ww..that's about it. Somehow i can't seem to do much productive in the baby-dream hours. On some occasions, i'm at home, i'll nap with Eliza....which is a wonderful thing cos i love to nap.

Last sunday, we came home after church & lunch with just-slept Eliza. Ww joined Eliza in the afternoon nap. I wish i could, but considering Eliza not eating much that day & rejecting the bottled food, i decided to cook her porridge. That & taking in the clothes & folding the clothes took me the length of her nap. when i comfortably sat on the sofa to check out any tv prog, Eliza promptly woke up. Problem was, by 330pm i was so sleepy and Eliza was at the peak of her play. I left Ww to play with her while i drifted in and out of sleep, cos i was already dozing off watching her play.i drifted in and out cos she was climbing all over me, and occasionally she was crying (cos daddy didn't let her touch the power point/wire..so she was whining). i ended up sleeping till 430pm. ah...nice.
somehow i have this problem of not being able to do some things while Eliza's awake & exploring; like surf the net (cos she'll want to join in too), or read a book (cos she'll be interested in what i'm reading), or write stuff (cos she'll want to write too), or sleep (obviously i can't sleep else there won't be anyone to watch her, actually not even when my in-laws is around). oh well...maybe when she's older, when we can do stuff together without messing up the whole place.

Then it's sleep for Eliza.
I learnt that unless an event is over and we're on the way so somewhere, Eliza won't fall asleep. So she'll only sleep when we're on our way to lunch/home after church service, or after the gathering, or after the wedding, or...you get the drift. I believe it's the 'i won't want to miss a thing' spirit in her. Now that she's older, she can stay awake longer and will make sure she does so when the need arises. So sometimes i really prefer to be sleeping at home. easier to fall asleep & better environment to sleep in...although i do hear frm my mil, that often after 45mins of sleep, she'll surely wake up if the phone rings.

The other sleep issue is the bedtime sleep. Somehow, by the grace of God & the natural progress of growth, she is getting better at going to sleep. It used to be that we had to carry her & sing to her till she sleeps. On some occasions, she can roll herself to sleep. We have established some kind of bedtime routine since very early on...
it consists of saying goodnight to grandparents & daddy,
~going into the room & closing the door (last time she'll be knocking the door, poking her fingers at the bottom of the door, trying to get out)
~bedtime read which is not so often these few weeks,
~then it's bedtime milk (of which i have to get her to drink at least twice as she won't finish it at one go)
~then its bedtime prayer which has lots of pauses in between and chasing her around the bed cos she won't sit still
~then it's 'good night, sweet dreams, mummy loves u, daddy loves u & God loves u'
~then trying to get her to sleep
(like a lot hor...this takes from 1/2hr on good days and 1hr on i-want-to-play-and-not-sleep days)

On days when my patience wears thin, i'll tell her in a stern voice that it's time to sleep, sometimes she'll guai guai lie down ...but that's sometimes only. Nowadays, she'll willingly point to her cot and get in her cot to roll around after some rounds of crawling around our bed. Taught her to hug miffy the rabbit and she did it today! haha...she also gave miffy a wet open-mouth kiss. (somehow her kisses to us is an open-mouth kiss on our lips or noses...really adorable!).

If i catch her at the right sleepy time, like today, she'll roll in her bed, rub her eyes and roll somemore and eventually fall asleep without much fuss. Thank God!

Non-sleep photos...
Swimming @ NSRCC

Eliza with daddy


REally very cold...the wind was strong & the water was cold, though u get used to it after a while..Eliza doesn't mind though.


Crawling at the shallow pool. wanted to teach her how to blow bubbles in the pool but i think it's a lil too advanced for her. haa..cos she kept choking on the water.


her shirt was up cos she poo-ed and i was going to wash her up but she found more fun splashing the recycled water from our washing clothes water, if i wasn't going to bathe her after that she wouldn't have had so much fun.

I'm sleepy now anyway...time for me to sleep.