Happy Feet

You may have noticed a drop off in the blog rate over the last couple of weeks.  It's not that nothing has been happening, it's just that I've been way too tired to write anything.  Alex is still waking up over night.  A lot.  As much as he ever has, including when he was very little.  Every three or so hours he'll wake up, snuffle and thrash about, then cry.  Sometimes he goes back to sleep just being rocked.  Sometimes he doesn't.  My routine for getting him back to sleep goes like this:

1. Wake up to thrashing.
2. Hope he'll go back to sleep. (He never does.)
3. Ignore first few nyaps hoping he'll go back to sleep. (He never does here, either.)
4. Wonder if Nic will get up and deal with him.
5. Admit that it's probably my turn.
6. Get up.  Freeze.
7. Shush Alex in his cot, not picking him up so as not to encourage this sort of behaviour.
8. Pick him up.
9. Rock back and forth until (if) arms go floppy.
10. Lower to the inverted prawn position (tummy to tummy, Alex's back arched towards horizonal away from me).  Rock until (if) arms go floppy again.
11. Put sleeping child in cot.
12. Take wide awake child out of cot again.
13. Repeat steps 9-11.
14. Give up and wake Nicola to feed him.

Poor Nic gets awoken by his snuffles and cries even if I do manage to get him back to sleep (which is getting rarer and rarer).  If I don't, she's up for an hour or so, once the pre-feed, feed, settling time and getting back to sleep time are factored in.  It's not making for the most compos mentis parents at the moment.If anyone has any advice, we're at the stage of trying anything!

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In other news, Alex has found his feet.  Strange to think that you have to learn to become aware of your own body.  He is very interested in them.  Any opportunity he gets he grabs them.  (This requires being on his back on a flat surface at the least.  Ideally, he likes to be naked, thus allowing full flexibility.)  He hasn't quite got them in his mouth yet (perhaps he takes after his paternal grandfather in terms of flexibility), but I suspect it's just a matter of time.  Last night they were even more interesting than the duck during bath time, and that's saying something!

Alex's bedtime is also getting earlier.  He's now noticeably snoozy and grumpy by 6:30pm.  This means bath time has been brought forwards to before Nic's and my dinnertime.  On the plus side, it means we get to eat a grown up, adult dinner at the same time as each other.  (Something of a novelty.)  On the down side, my god am I hungry by 7:30!  I've been spoilt by Nic having had my tea on the table when I got home.  Still, I'm sure we'll enjoy it, once we're not so tired we fall asleep in our lasagne.