Life under a Pepper Tree

Overall not a bad week here. We've had a few outings, been on some walks and a 4th birthday party.  Its been a mostly wet weekend, and the perfect opportunity for cuddles on the lounge with my boys, and a little me time.  I've got the best excuse for some quiet days at home.  Hubby bought me (or was instructed to buy me) the box set of the Offspring TV show on DVD.  I love it! I've gone back to the beginning to watch the early years and see the episodes I missed out on, and to refresh my memory on the ones I saw.  So looking forward to the new season starting in a few weeks! Tristan has been pretty good this past week.  Napping has been reasonable and night times are ok.  He had a few feeding strikes, but I knew he wouldn't starve himself, so I haven't been too worried.  This past week he hit 12 weeks old and I'm noticing his size 000 clothes getting a bit tighter.  I'm sure by this age Dylan was bare...

It's funny how whenever I start each post and I think about the week that just been, the first thing I go to mention is about sleep.  Sleep cycles, sleep at night, daytime sleeps, or just the lack of sleep!  I guess it's better than discussing baby poo which is a pretty common topic around here! So sleep has been better again this week.  A couple of crappy days and blocks where he just wont go down for a nap, but it's about a million times better than a few weeks ago.  We took both boys out a few times this week.  Once was our first dinner out with Tristan for my sister in laws birthday.  Somehow the stars all aligned and it was a perfectly timed evening.  He woke for a feed about half an hour before we had to leave.  So it was a quick one, then into the car for the 5 minute drive.  All the inlaws were there so while he was happy and awake Tristan got passed around for kisses and cuddles.  He then finished feeding and had a snooze...

What can I say, more poor sleeps, more frustration... until Friday!  I had a terrible few days without quality day sleeps, tears (him and I), and general misery.  I was really getting just so upset about it that I knew I had to do something to change things up and try making a few differences to our day to day, hour to hour processes, in the hope of getting some contentment.  And wow what a difference!!  Tristan immediately was so much more capable of self settling.  I can now put him down for a nap awake, and he will drift off pretty quickly, and often I don't even need to go in and pop the dummy back in.  He will now doze off for approximately 1 sleep cycle, averaging 40 minutes which is ever so much more than the 10 minutes or less we were getting before.  It's just such a huge improvement!  From there we are now trying to get multiple sleep cycles without the need for resettling during the day.  Sure it's meant th...