In my youth, which means before I had kids, I had trouble getting up in the morning. I had to be very careful to set my alarm, or else I would sleep through whatever it was I had to do. Ahhh, youth.
I haven’t set an alarm clock in four and a half years. Surprise surprise, that’s exactly Thing 1’s age.
It is impossible for me to oversleep for anything now. Most days, Thing 3 is my alarm clock. We can’t set the exact time he goes off, but he is sure to be standing in his crib and doing his cock-a-doodle-do (aka crying) sometime between 5-6:15am.
Just in case Thing 3’s wakeup call doesn’t work (not likely), I have backup Plan B - otherwise known as Thing 2. As soon as he wakes up Thing 2 will come into our room and climb into our bed.
So, what happens on those rare occasions, like when I travel for work, when there are no Things to wake me up? Do I go back to my oversleeping youth? Not to worry. ... read more >>
Parenthood has its trials as well as its joys and, perhaps because it’s February, during the coldest and snowiest winter in a generation, I’ll briefly touch upon the former. After our Maggie got through her latest bout of teething, we enjoyed a settled patch when she would go to bed along with the twins and permit us to sleep through the night. Amy’s schedule of evening meetings slackened over Christmas, so we were on a bit of a streak.
Thanks to Ava's generous Grandfather, we were given a very cool Infant Monitor to monitor our new baby Ava while she sleeps.
With Ava’s first night at home, we had her bassinet setup, nice new sheets and blankets, and right by the bed… Andrea and I had envisioned that Ava would happily sleep in the bassinet next to her parent’s bed peacefully… Ava had other idea’s, and who could blame her?!?! She has just spent the last 40 weeks inside her mother, why would she then want to spend anytime away from her mother.Andrea knew from the nights in hospital that Ava liked to sleep next to her, so this is what’s so at the moment… I’m not thinking it spells trouble just yet; she is just too little to be manipulative.
A few months ago when we were trying to figure out how to get our little man to self settle at night we came across the Philips Magic Theatre. Basically it's a projector that beams rotating images onto a wall - it also plays some sounds / music. We've been using it for a wee while so I thought I'd post a quick review on it.
Miss O stayed home today with her Caesarlandococci virus, and it looks like she's gonna be home again tomorrow. It's one of those weird-ass viruses where she's fine for like five hours, then her fever jumps up to 100 and she rolls into a ball on the couch until I can mainline some Children's Motrin into her.
In our little breastfeeding community we recently realized that somehow we ended up with the short straw when it comes to our babies sleeping through the night. Our bottle feeding friends seem to have very few sleepless nights or even any disruptions at night. How unfair to follow nature's way and then get nocturnal stress as a pay back. 
“Seven Steps to Baby Bliss” from 
Time for a little DIY action I thought - I had a look round for suitable solutions and in the end decided that a bit of spare cardboard would do the trick. With card board you've basically got 2 options - it's either thick enough so it can be wedged in the window frame (if you cut it just slightly bigger than the inner frame) OR you can use double sided tape to stick it to the window. Either solution worked for me but this is definitely where "measure twice cut once" is a usefule rule! You don't want the gap between the cardboard and window too big ... never seizes to amaze me how much light can come through a tiny gap. On the other hand if it's too big you won't be able to wedge it in and it will fold somewhere. So a bit of precision is required. I found that using a good carpet cutter and a wooden slat (as a ruler) is best for precision cutting. 
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