We're back to waking in the night

Baby M has generally been a great baby during the night.  Yes he woke a lot when he was tiny but he would have is bottle and go back to sleep.

When he was about 4.5 months old he started sleeping through the night - going to bed at 7pm and waking about 5am.  I know 5am is early but 10 hours sleep is pretty good!

His napping during the day varies, some days he hardly naps and other days he has longer naps in the day.

2 weeks ago when we had the warm weather Baby M started waking up throughout the night, a few times each night.  He would only settled being shushed by one of us.  We were knackered so brought him into bed with us a few nights to get some sleep.  I know this is a bad idea but when you're exhausted you do anything just to get some sleep!

For the past week he has been waking about 1230-1ish and having a bottle then going back to sleep until 430-5.  He has a whole bottle every time.

He still goes to sleep about 7pm.

I know we should try and get him to stay awake later but even when he has stayed awake until 8pm he wakes at the same times.

Is he thirsty because its warmer?  Is he going through a growth spurt?  Will this last forever?

I have no idea but at the moment I don't know what else to try.  We've put blackout blinds up in his room but that doesn't seem to have made much difference.

Has anyone else gone through anything similar?  Any Advice??

BACK TO SLEEP Slumber Bear - Review

My mum bought this for Baby M just after I had my 12 week scan.  The bear is gorgeous but to be honest at the time I didn't really think we would use the audio pacifier

The Slumber Bear is by Prince Lionheart.

Price varies but it generally retails for £24.99-£30

The bear comes with a comforting removable soother and a pouch at the back which contains the 5 function audio pacifier.  The 5 functions are - heart beat, waves, white noise, lullaby and a record button for you to record your own noise.  We tried to record the hoover on the record button as that seemed to work at soothing Baby M but for some reason it would only record a few seconds then revert back to heart beat function.

We use the heart beat function as it seems to soothe Baby M and help send him to sleep.  At the moment whilst he is in his moses basket we don't have the bear inside the basket incase it smothers him.  The pacifier comes out of the pouch at the back of the bear and has velcro straps on.  We put these straps around the handle of the moses basket.  When Baby M was smaller we had it inside the basket but now he's a bit bigger and hits his hands off the side of the basket we have it on the outside.  It is still loud enough for him to hear though. 

The pacifier has an auto shut off so after 5 minutes the noise stops.  As we have the moses basket at the bottom of the bed and the pacifier now hangs on the bottom of the bed I just touch it with my foot to set it off again.  Also if Baby M moves it sets off.

We love this product.  The bear is so soft!! I can't wait for Baby M to be able to appreciate the bear.  We will put it in his cot when he is big enough to go in it.  The audio pacifier has saved us many a sleepless night!!  We would have been up and down soothing Baby M without it.  I would highly recommend it

Disclaimer: This product was bought as a present by a family member with no association to Prince Lionheart.  The views are my own

Sharing a room with a baby

It is recommended that your baby sleep in your room for 6 months following birth.  This is so you can easily monitor the baby, feed the baby and also gives you peace of mind - you aren't reliant on a monitor and constantly running through to another room as you haven't heard a noise in 10 seconds.

Every baby is different but Baby M is a noisy sleeper!!!  My mum had told me that with me as a baby she had managed to have me sleep in her room for a few weeks but with my brother she had only managed a night before putting him in his cot due to the noises he made.  I laughed this off when she told me but I'm now understanding what she was talking about.

Sharing a room with a baby gives you peace of mind but also drives you a little crazy.  Baby M grunts, snorts, huffs, puffs, squeaks, sounds like a horse - you name it he makes the noise.  However as soon as he goes into a proper sleep and the noises stop I find myself holding my breath to make sure I can still hear him breathing! I haven't got to the stage where I'm holding a mirror under his nose to see if it fogs up but I do feel a little neurotic.  I'm finding myself wishing he wouldn't make all his crazy noises then when he's quiet wishing he would breathe a little louder.

Will we keep him in our room for 6 months, I'm honestly not sure - I think he might outgrow his Moses basket before then.  However there is no way I could put him in his own room at the moment (one reason being we don't have all the cotbed yet) but the other I think I might have even less sleep from constantly having the monitor pressed against my ear.