Happy 2009

                         LJ at a little after midnight, 01.01.09

Louis hopes all his bwb fans had as good a start to the new year as he did. He saw in 2009 in some style after his parents finally got the message and let him stay up and join the party instead of fruitlessly attempting to lull him back to the land of nod once he woke up at 11.30pm. (If you can call dinner for four plus a sleeping 20 month old a party, although I fear you can: this Momhood malarky seems to mean that eating with anything apart from a magazine or the telly ranks as a big night.) 

Letting LJ stay up and play for a couple of hours instead of trying to coax him back to sleep made for a better night for us as well. It sure made a change from the usual pacing around until he drops off and then praying that this time he might just stay asleep for more than a couple of hours. I'm told that this business of waking up more rather than less at six-ish months is not unusual. I believe it's known as the six-month sleep regression. He's not being wilful; he just can't sleep because there is so much bubbling away in his head, not to mention throbbing through his sizable muscles. 

To be fair, LJ's had a big couple of weeks, mastering sitting up, crawling and cutting a couple of teeth. Which I guess explains why he spends half of his nights up on all fours, rocking back and forth instead of sleeping. I don't even think he knows he's doing it half the time. Something similar happened at three-ish months when he'd spend all night practising rolling over only to get stuck once he reached his stomach. Each time you flipped him back on his back, over he'd go again. These developmental milestones apparently occur at so-called "wonder weeks". The mumosphere is rife with talk of a magical book by a couple of Dutch researchers that sheds light on what's going on inside their little heads, but I don't think I can take anymore alleged magical books. (That said, we're about ready to start paying one of those sleep trainer people, or we would be if I had a big fat redundancy cheque heading my way.)

For now, I'm just hoping that along with walking and talking (more developmental milestones certain to break the night into yet smaller chunks) one of Louis' new year's resolutions might be to learn to sleep. Gina Ford would say that's something I'm supposed to be teaching him, which I guess means I'm already failing as a Mother a mere six or so months into the job. But nobody tell him that. Good night and Happy New Year blog fans.