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2005-06-07 - 11.53pm previous entry next entry
Urrrrrgh, sleep AGAIN! And stuff.
Urgh, too much to say again in one entry! Thank you for the guestbook messages and notes, etc! Michelle, I can�t get the Baby Safe Feeder in the UK :( I looked at their website but I can only order it if I live in the States. Poo. But thanks for mentioning it! And you have noooo need to be jealous of our sleep. That�s news item #1 for this entry:
Sleep issues. I hate always talking about them. But here we go again. We seem to have taken 2 steps forward, and what feels like about 946,034 steps back. Right now everything feels worse than ever with Arthur�s sleep, and I don�t understand why. Anyway, the outcome of this evening is that when I sat in front of the computer to write my diary, at first all I felt like writing was:
I suck.
Also, I suck.
And in conclusion, I suck.
But that wouldn�t explain much to anyone, so I�ll elaborate a bit.
Arthur is still sleeping okay at night, and last night was pretty good � about 3 or 4 hours between each feed. And he fell asleep again well after feeds, and even after the nappy change in the middle of the night. But the previous two nights he was really quite restless and woke a lot. So that felt like we were back to square one a bit. His naps in the day over the weekend have been difficult. And yesterday it was like an all-day battle to get him enough nap-time sleep. That sucked, because it was just tiring and no fun, for either of us probably. Today he has napped much better though. Half an hour this morning, then 30 minutes at lunch time, which I managed to settle him back to sleep after (nursing), and then he slept 90 minutes straight. Then he was tired late afternoon (he usually has 3 naps a day, two short and one long) but when I took him to bed he took an hour of rolling about, screeching (which is starting to drive me crazy, all his piercing, ear-numbing screeching that he seems to be practising constantly these days!) and basically not sleeping � even though he was rubbing his eyes and obviously tired and getting cranky. He did fall asleep eventually though. During that time I lay with him and tried to be patient. It is increasingly difficult to be patient, and I hate that.
But the main thing is that just in these last few nights, Arthur has been extremely difficult to get to sleep at bedtime. I guess maybe we could improve the structure and consistency of our bedtime routine with him, and that might help. But he is sooooo tired at bedtime, he is cranky and sleepy and irritable and rubbing his eyes, etc, etc, basically displaying every possible sign of a tired baby who is ready for bed. I nurse him. He is so so fidgety and distractable on the breast, and he flings his arms everywhere constantly, so I get whacked in the face, breast, arm, glasses, etc. I tried holding him closer or in a way that makes it more difficult for him to wriggle so much, but that just makes him come off the breast all the time to get annoyed, etc. He keeps on popping off the breast to turn away from me and look at the curtains. Then he�ll chat and screech at them, which wakes him up further and wears my nerves down even closer to the wick. I sing, and he listens, but still that doesn�t seem to leave him sleepy enough to prevent the constant wiggling and screeching. When he won�t take the breast anymore, it�s usually because he�s full of air, so Neil burps him. He always has a good few BIG burps! Then back he comes for the other breast. Ditto the above behaviour. Eventually (these days anyway), he is full to the brim of milk but not sleepy enough to fall asleep. He always used to be dropping off to sleep from nursing, but he just seems so ultra-hyper these days, at all times. It�s not just wakefulness, it�s the sheer speed and franticness of his movements and vocalising, it�s odd. I wonder why? Even when he�s tired and annoyed that he isn�t asleep.
Urgh. Anyway, so after he�s full of milk we rapidly run out of tools to help him sleep. Lots of things have worked in the past, including patting and shh-ing, Neil rocking him, etc. The last two nights when this happened, I just kept nursing him, and then giving him to Neil to burp him, and then nursing him, and giving him to Neil to rock him, and then nursing him, etc, etc. Over and over. Last night it took till 8pm (he goes to bed around 6.30) doing this till he finally fell asleep, completely exhausted. He was so tired the whole time, and we were doing the things that most help him to sleep. I don�t understand it. He did then sleep four hours straight though. Tonight I started thinking that maybe it wasn�t helping him to let him fall asleep on the breast or rock him to sleep. I mean, recently Neil has been rocking him to sleep a little more than normal � especially over the weekend. I wondered if maybe that had made things worse? I don�t know. So tonight I said we should try other things, and not rock him. And I wouldn�t nurse him right to sleep, but then I don�t generally do that anyway. He normally nurses till nearly asleep and then either pops off by himself and turns over to go to sleep, or I take him off the breast and he then turns over and sleeps.
Soooo that�s what we tried this evening. Except it went wrong. Really wrong. I nursed him. He fidgeted (and nursed) and rolled, and screeched at the curtains every few moments. Neil burped him. He burped and grabbed at the curtains and screeched and wriggled and twisted in Neil�s arms to see me so he could smile at me, and then he nursed, and so on. Eventually he was full and still totally awake. I guess I felt so�. I don�t know what the word is. Snappy? Worn down? Frustrated? Irritable? I don�t know. All of those. Snarndowfrustitable. Heh. I like making new words :) But anyway. I felt so whatever that I just had to leave the room and take a break. The same happened yesterday evening. Yesterday I took 5 minutes while Neil was in there with Arthur, rocking him or whatnot, and just pottered around downstairs folding laundry or starting dinner, and it did only take 5 minutes for me to feel okay again and go back up to the bedroom when I heard Arthur sounding cross and sleepy.
But tonight Neil wasn�t rocking him, we tried the patting/shh-ing thing instead. Which totally did NOT go down well this evening. And when I took a break, I didn�t feel all nice again in 5 minutes. I just felt more and more resentful. Arthur got more and more tired and more and more angry, and eventually no matter what we tried, he was crying real tears and sounding so sad and angry, how he NEVER sounds. I hate that he cried and felt so upset. He absolutely could not go to sleep, and I think that is what was bugging him the most. That and the fact that he didn�t understand why we weren�t fixing it for him to get to sleep like always. We left him on his own twice for about 5 minutes each time, but both of those times he was happy enough when we left him, just wide awake and rolling and chatting to the curtains, etc. The first time he got cross and I went back. The second time he suddenly had enough and started crying and screaming, so I went back and nursed him. When he was doing that a lot, despite things we were trying, Neil worried that he had teething pain, because that�s the only time he�s really ever cried like this, so we gave him Calpol. He is teething, but then he always is. That�s frustrating me too. Probably not as much as it is Arthur, but there we go.
Anyway. Eventually it was 9pm, I had nursed him almost asleep three more times since the original bedtime feed, and each time he seemed asleep on his side when I got up, but the second I was off the bed he woke and was most upset straight away. Not that I was leaving, but that he was awake. The last time I didn�t even make if off the bed before he woke like that. I tried shh-ing and patting at that point, but he just cried and cried. Eventually, our dinner in the oven attempting to keep warm, Neil lay next to Arthur to shh him, and Arthur cried like his heart was breaking, which half-broke mine, and I escaped to the kitchen to cry, and feel horribly guilty and resentful and annoyed all at once.
I hate that we are starting to spend the whole evening, or the best part of it, fighting to get Arthur to sleep. I hate that he is tired enough for bed from when we put him there and still doesn�t sleep. I hate that he cried tonight. I hate that I am starting to feel resentful towards him over this. I have often resented the situation with his sleep issues, but I don�t really remember feeling resentment towards HIM personally. That is so unfair to Arthur. It is not his fault. But I find myself wanting to just chuck him on the bed and yell at him to �GO TO SLEEP ALREADY!!!� and bang the door shut on my way out. When he cries angrily at me and my patience is worn thin, I want to snap, �Fine! Stay up all evening then. See if I care!� and leave him crying till he tires himself out and sleeps. Sometimes the urge is so strong, because I am so fed up with it all. But as strong as that pull is, there is a stronger pull from the opposite pole, which is that I can�t bear to even think unkindly towards my little one. I feel protective and fierce about someone even thinking the things I just wrote, which obviously clashed horribly, since I�m the one both thinking them and hating myself for thinking them. I can�t bear him to cry and be upset. I want to always be there to �rescue� him from things that are upsetting him, not to be the source of the problem.
In some way or another I feel I am letting Arthur down over the sleep thing. Either by my choice of method, I am depriving him of learning to sleep better, because I won�t use a method that means he cries (what was tonight then?!), or by tightening the reins on things, I am causing him to be upset and therefore letting him down.
Neil came down about 10 minutes after I left them upstairs, by which time I had mopped up a bit and sat sniffling over a plate of tepid pasta and fish fingers. He said Arthur went to sleep at last, with Neil on all-fours over him, saying �shh-SHH�shh-SHH� over and over. Arthur seemed to want to feel enclosed, because when he stirred, he only settled again when he could put his hands on Neil�s arms either side of him. My poor baby :( He just needs physical contact, and comfort, when he is upset and trying to sleep. My irritability is making me deprive him of that when he needs it most. Ugh.
I feel like, for all that hassle and upset this evening, was it even worth it? Have we even gotten anywhere for doing it? If we had rocked him and held him and nursed him until he slept, would he not have slept sooner, or at least not had to cry and be upset? But I lose patience. I get so that I feel like when Arthur is in bed asleep, I finally get to de-stress and have some space and �me� time, otherwise I go crazy. I love spending all my time with Arthur, but I do look forward to his bedtime some days, by the early evening. I am ready for some relaxation and space to think and be me again for a few hours. But lately most of that time is taken up being hugely stressed and trying to get Arthur to bed. So then there�s a teeny tiny chunk of time for me to de-stress, with MUCH more de-stressing needed than normal, and no energy left to enjoy it. Tonight we basically had time to eat our no-longer-hot meal and then go to bed after several hours of putting Arthur to bed. Which really irks me. I am tired out. I should be in bed like Neil. But I neeeeed some time to myself. So I take the time that I need to stop my brain from imploding, and therefore guarantee myself an exhausted tomorrowness, since I will lose out on the extra sleep I am about 50 months behind on.
I can�t help but think crazy things, that everyone will surely tell me to stop dwelling on, but I�m not, they are just in my head and I can�t make them not be. Things like, if Arthur dies tonight, will I be glad that I was working on �training� him to sleep better, or will I wish that I had nursed him and comforted him and given him all the time I could, until he fell asleep peacefully at the breast or in Neil�s arms? There�s obviously no question. Things like that do make me wonder about any sort of sleep training. No matter how you reason it, or benefit from it, or try to make it gentle, somehow it just doesn�t seem natural to me. I would never ever ever ever ever ever ever (ad infinitum) forgive myself if I had spent Arthur�s last night resenting his wakefulness or listening to him cry for the �good� of his sleeping habits, or withholding a type of comfort that he is longing for, to help him sleep, like nursing to sleep or being rocked. Sometimes tonight when I took him off the breast in a sleepy state, his whole body reacted and reached desperately for me, even clawing at my t-shirt once I�d pulled it down, to try and stay nursing so that he could finish falling asleep. At the time I thought it was for the best that I helped him learn to do without. Why though? Not for him. For me. I was the one feeling impatient. Ugh. I am going round in circles.
Basically � trying to mould my baby into any sort of expected sleep habit doesn�t feel right or natural. But letting the current trend continue is doing my head in. I�m getting resentful about it. And tired. And irritable. And none of that is helping Arthur, or me, or Neil. So fix it. But a) it doesn�t feel right, and b) it�s not working. So use a method that works. But a) I will not let him cry. Nope. Not even for four nights (the predicted success time with many methods). Also b) I will not let him cry. Which many methods seem to include, no matter how gently it is managed, it�s still crying. And while he�s crying, my baby is upset, sweating, hyperventilating, and miserable. And c) I will not let him cry.
So where does that leave us?
Urrrrgh. This evening, it leaves me feeling horrible for having been snappy with my little one, and leaving him to cry with Neil while I sulked off downstairs. Now that he�s finally in an exhausted sleep and silent, I wish I could wake him to cuddle him and hold him close in my arms and love him. I wish I could whisper to him as I stroke his soft new hair that I am sorry I was impatient and irritable, and I�m so sorry that he had to cry and feel unhappy and frustrated and angry tonight. And I�m here, and I love him, and I�m not going anywhere. But he�s asleep. So I will save all that up for when he next wakes. Which of course I will do ultra-quietly while I nurse him, so as not to make him all wakeful again. I can�t wait till he wakes again so I can breastfeed him and be a tangible source of comfort for him. I feel like I want to �make up� for something that I took away from him earlier. Whatever that is. I feel bad. Basically, I feel like a truly crappy mother tonight. Crappy. But more so, because it�s not like I was a crappy mother, then I realised it, and now I won�t ever be a crappy mother like that ever again. Nope. I will probably be a crappy mother in the same way tomorrow, when Arthur�s sleep battles recommence and I lose the small sliver of patience that I have left. And I hate that this is likely to happen. I hate even thinking about it. Blah.
Something else. Talk about something else. I want to pull my own hair and slap my own cheek. Or something.
Oh my back! I went to an emergency appt with an osteopath on Sunday. I�m so glad I did! This osteopath is called Lexy and she is sooooo good! Yay! Neil and Arthur came too but they waited downstairs. I felt bad because we were an hour upstairs and I could hear Arthur being bored and cranky sometimes. I feel bad about things a lot lately, related to Arthur. I want him to always be happy (though I know that�s not realistic), and if he�s not then it�s usually something I haven�t fixed for him, so when he�s angry or unhappy it�s personal, and I feel bad. You�re going to tell me I�m wrong. But that won�t change how I feel about it.
Anyway. So I gave the osteopath my history which took a while (birth, pregnancy, rest of my life, etc!) and she looked at my back. She says my right leg is a tad shorter than the left, but probably because my pelvis isn�t fully aligned (which was what gave me the SPD trouble during pregnancy). And most of my height is in my torso (which I know), so the small of my back has an enormous stress-load as the pivotal point for any weight-bearing, etc. Much more so than anyone who is better proportioned than me (about 99.9999% of the human race!). So if my back is going to go wrong then it will be in the lower back area. Which is the bit that hurts. Also she said my joints are really loose. I said, �Oh that�s good!� She looked at me and shook her head. Oh dear. Very loose is bad, apparently. She said all my joints are really loose, and that makes it likely that the bones in my spine are too, which = easy misalignment and more work for the supporting muscles. She said I am sooo lucky I haven�t had a lifetime of back trouble so far! Yikes. Anyway she said we need to tighten and strengthen the muscles in my lower back, to support the oddness of my build (!!), and loosen the muscles at the top because they are tight as a drum. She said that was because of the strain of carrying Arthur during pregnancy, and from the birth, and from carrying him since. I didn�t realise how tight those muscles were till she started trying to loosen them. Oh. My. Ouchness.
Also she did a full treatment on my back, which meant a lot of being pulled about and that hurt sometimes, and that awful �clunk-click� treatment (as they call it), which involves her saying, �Take a deep breath in� and then leaning over me and saying, ��. And out again� and as I start to breathe out, she throws her full body weigh onto my ribcage, with some added force from her arms, and all my breath shoots out in a big gust, and once there is nowt left in there at all, that�s when all the bones in my whole body (well, the ribs and spine anyway) make the most sickening crackles and crunches! Like 10 of them, all at once. It makes ME feel sick, just hearing it! Then she does it again till there�s no more crackling. Yeurgh. Equally horrid is the bit where she�s manipulating my head and neck till it�s kind of hurting from twisting further to the side than I thought it was able to, and then suddenly with my head in her hands, she whips it back to face ahead, and then gives it a split-second twist to the side (further than before), whereupon it cracks most horribly! The weirdest thing is, the point where it cracks makes me yell, �Ow!!� but actually it�s a physical relief to my neck. Odd.
I have homework. I need to ice my back with a gel-pack when it hurts, 15 minutes up to four times a day (none at all so far, but that�s me not getting round to it rather than being pain-free, tsk). And I have to stop sleeping on my tummy � nooooo!! I told her that is the only way I can get to sleep, even when I�m exhausted. I have restless leg syndrome and I can�t bear to be on my back or sides when it�s bad. I�d rather pull my own ears off. Seriously. It�s a horrible sensation. On my tummy, it�s much more bearable, and I fall asleep much quicker that way. She said if I MUST sleep on my front, I should sleep with a pillow under my tummy to support my lower spine. She said sleeping on your stomach is really really bad for the back. In my case even more so, because of my joints being so loose. She said basically my lower spine will be collapsing in on itself overnight as it drops towards my tummy. So far I have managed to sleep on my sides or back once, but the other time I have slept on my tummy with a pillow under me. That wasn�t comfy, but it was miles better than restless legs on my back or sides. And she also gave me homework for my Jaw Joint Malfunction. I have to bite on a pencil across my mouth at the molars, equally on both sides! And try to always chew my food equally on both sides. So I�m trying. It�s weird though.
And probably other stuff. But my head is aching now and I�m getting tired, so I forget what I meant to say. Oh but I have another appt with her tomorrow at 11.20. It�s down the road from where Neil works, so I am taking Arthur to the office and Neil is taking a (very) early lunch to take Arthur for a walk while I have my appt. Lexy said I could bring Arthur with me, but I just thought, it�s up a narrow staircase so I couldn�t take the pushchair. There is very little room for him in the tiny treatment room, and even if there was, he can�t just be put down on the floor. He can�t sit or lie in there properly, and anyway, the session lasts about 40 minutes. He would be bored and cranky after about, ooh, three?! So that wouldn�t work. It�s good that Neil works so nearby. I am going to ask about getting lunchtime appts next time.
Urgh I am getting too tired to write any more. But I didn�t even get to the part where I write lovely happy stuff about being Arthur�s mummy, and about how he�s doing. That�s what I feel like writing about now that I�ve let off steam.
Okay, well he is doing well, other than sleep! He is gorgeous. I love him so much. He laughs and smiles all the time. Earlier today when he was struggling to go to sleep for his nap, I let him roll away from me for the fifty millionth time, hoping he was turning over to go to sleep, and there was a pause and suddenly his head popped up and he started talking to the curtains cheerfully! I felt so exasperated, but this was like the 9th time or something, and suddenly the exasperation flipped into seeing the funny side, and I started to chuckle � but that whispered type of chuckle, where it bearly sounds like you�re making more than a few hushed puffs of air. Amazingly, Arthur seemed to recognise it as a hushed giggle all the same, because he immediately stopped chatting to the curtains, and turned towards me, starting to giggle himself!! I love how this little boy giggles simply because I am laughing! Just to see or hear me laugh makes him happy and giggly, and that�s so lovely. He uses giggling as a way of getting attention, I think. He has developed such a silly cute false laugh!! He uses it a lot, like when Neil and I are talking to each other, all of a sudden there will be a funny chokey laughing sound, and we look at Arthur and there he is, fixing us with a very direct look, coughing out an odd sounding chuckle! He knows we respond with great delight when he laughs and giggles, so I guess he is using it as a method of grabbing our attention when he wants it! I think it�s very sweet, mainly because it�s soooo obviously a fake laugh, but he must think he�s doing a convincing job, hehe! :)
Today for the first time he has been up on his hands and knees � well, not quite knees. More like thighs! He hasn�t quite made it up onto his knees, but they get pulled up near enough, so that he�s resting on his thighs. He rocks and rocks like this. This afternoon he rocked so hard in this position that he shoved himself a few inches forwards in one lunge. It wasn�t crawling as he didn�t move any of his limbs, but he moved forwards in a crawl position. So I guess it will be soon! He was pleased to move forward those few inches, as it brought him within reach of a favourite toy, which he immediately grasped and settled down to play with! I hope that will encourage him to try it again and get crawling. He is getting so frustrated that he can�t move about like he wants to now. He rolls everywhere and at angles, but it isn�t nearly efficient enough for him! He has to roll back and forth many times over to get himself where he�s aiming � say at a toy a few feet away diagonally from him. If he could just propel himself forwards he could get there fast and in a straight line of sight too.
What else? Ohhh I shared another apple with him today. This time I put him in his highchair while I cleaned a bit in the kitchen, and I started eating an apple. I cut him two sticks of apple out of it and he gummed on them a bit and then dropped them on the floor. Then I decided I might as well be steaming some apple for pureeing and freezing while we had some nice organic apples. So I got that going while I continued cleaning. When the sticks of peeled apple that I�d steamed were cool enough, I gave one to Arthur to see what he would do with it. He loved the texture (squashy), but didn�t seem to consider putting it in his mouth! He squished it in his fist until it fell into three sad little squishy pieces on his highchair tray, and then he picked one of those up between finger and thumb and squished it further! After that they were boring and lay discarded on the tray.
Then I pureed the remaining steamed apple, and I was all set to spoon it into ice-cube trays, when I suddenly thought I might try Arthur with some. He hasn�t tried pureed apple yet, and it was warm and fragrant and perfect. Thicker than his other purees, but just like apple sauce really, not too slushy or coarse. I gave him some. He took several spoonfuls, but basically did not seem impressed that I�d shovelled them in his mouth! Hehe. He preferred (as always) to use the spoon himself, so I let him. Here are the photos of Arthur being less than impressed with yet another food!...
Hehehe! He made a lot of soured faces, like that middle photo. I guess apple is much more sour than breastmilk, even though it was a nice sweet eating apple. Anyway, he did swallow it well. He looked kind of gaggy a couple of times, but moved it to the back of his mouth and swallowed very quickly and efficiently each time. We�ll see how we go.
He is 7 months old the day after tomorrow!!! Crazy. Also my SIL is due that day too!! Yay! So excited.
I re-evaluated the signing. I decided that �more� and �eat� are definitely not that relevant for now, so I stopped teaching him �more�. There just weren�t any opportunities to use it in any case. The only thing he really has more of is milk, and we already have a sign for that. I thought about his normal day and what he might like to communicate most if he knew how. I think other than �milk�, he might like to ask to be picked up or put down, but not that often, since I hold him a lot and he likes it. But the main thing I thought he would like to communicate would be something to do with pain (eg. teething) or getting medicine for that. He has teething pain ALL the time, and gets medicine for it in some form every single day. Poor baby. So there is plenty of opportunity for us to teach him a sign about that, and for him to learn and use a sign too. I figured he could learn �pain�, but that�s not so easy to teach with a frame of reference. I might try it anyway. But I thought the most important thing (and easiest) for him to learn would be �medicine�. Easy because it�s like �milk�. He is fussing and rubbing his ears. I say, �Do you need some medicine?� and sign �medicine�. I get the teething powder or Calpol or gel or whatever, and when he sees me holding it, I sign medicine again. I ask him again if he wants medicine and sign one more time with it. Then I give it to him. Right after that I sign �medicine�. That�s a really easy one, and I think he�d learn it fast and be able to use it to ASK us for medicine when he needs it. That would be so great! We�d also be able to tell if he really needed it by his reaction to the sign once he has understood it. The only thing is, I can�t seem to find a sign for medicine anywhere! I�ve looked in the books and websites � nada. Sooo I made one up! :) I just picked a one-handed sign that is easy to make and unique from his normal hand mannerisms. After fiddling with my hands for a while (!), I decided on a sign where I point with my forefinger across my body, and raise and lower the whole hand at the wrist, sort of like shaking my hand at the wrist but with only my finger pointing. I don�t know why I settled on that one. It just seemed easy.
So today we have given Arthur medicine for his teeth twice (powder). I have stopped calling it �powder� when I give it to him, and started calling it medicine. It was easy to teach him this sign today! He watched my hand attentively, took the powder (very pleased!) and watched me sign it again whilst saying �medicine� clearly. The next time we gave him powder was when Neil had just got home from work. I explained the plan to Neil and showed him the sign. Neil signed it to Arthur and gave him the powder. When he signed it to him again after giving him the powder, Arthur made his hand into a fist with his forefinger pointing across his body (but not moving) as he watched Neil sign it!!! Clever boy :) So I think he will learn this one fast. It�s probably one he will be eager to use, to communicate with us about his poor teeth.
Hmmm, what else? It�s after midnight now (soooooo silly) so I should go to bed. Arthur has been asleep since he finally went out at around 9.10pm, so three hours so far, which is great. I hope we have a good night. Arthur needs it really, he will be extra tired from such a late bedtime.
Here is a photo of my little man enjoying a bubbly bath with his daddy! He loves the bubbles, and we take care to froth them up as much as possible while we�re running the bath. He also loves a nice deep bath! He likes it when he can sit on the bottom and the water comes up to nearly his chin! Although when he dips his head forward (as he likes to do to see the bubbles!), he often comes up again with a bubble-moustache and beard, hehe! Sometimes I wonder what he would make of a bath sitting on his own. He has never had one. I don�t think he�d be crazy about the couple of inches of water he�d be sitting in (safely) if he was on his own in the bath. Anyway, here he is in his nice deep bubbly bath!...
We are testing out Tots Bots nappies again. They are such lovely nappies, but he outgrew the size 2s a while ago. I heard that they make a size 3 for preschoolers (haha!), so I decided to buy him two � one white and one unbleached. Both with aplix, which is annoying since I prefer poppers or snappi fastenings, but they only come in aplix for size 3s. Arthur can undo aplix, I have now discovered! And enjoys it too! ;) Anyway, I also bought a really nice PUL wrap in size 3 from Tots Bots, but it�s not on their website. It�s a new PUL print, really nice! So he is wearing them and they fit him! They are also the first nappies he has worn in ages that have some extra room for him to grow!!! I love them. I cut out the fabric for making another towelling/microfleece stuffable nappy today, during Arthur�s lunchtime nap. I need to sew it now. They are all he uses at night now, as they can be stuffed with anything absorbent and get covered with a wrap so they don�t leak. They fit him generously and work wonderfully with a toddler size Stacinator So-Simple Wrap. My huge boy! The toddler wrap is actually getting a little tight on the legs!! He is so chunky. I know he�ll slim down in the thigh once he�s crawling though. We have had to put all our lovely size large Fuzzis aside!!! I can�t BELIEVE he has outgrown these � it�s crazy. He still fits the waist on the smallest or second smallest snap setting, but they are a bit tight on the thigh and he keeps getting a builder�s bum at the back! So I presume he has outgrown them in the rise. I am tentatively on the look-out for XL Fuzzi Bunz, but we�re having a minor money crisis so I�m not actively hunting right now. We need a couple more Grobags though. He does great in his Grobags at night, but it�s getting too hot for his summer ones. He needs a couple of high summer ones I think. But we�ll see.
I�ll leave you with this last photo of Arthur, taken yesterday. He was lying on the bed, and I was taking photos of him, and I popped up behind the camera and said, �BOO!� (which he always loves!) and he laughed and giggled at me! Here is the photo I took of him doing that! :)
He�s so lovely. I do love him sooooo much. I wish I could fix his sleep for him better. And not be so grumpy. And love him even better than I do. But I do love him so. I sing him love songs. Really! I sing songs that I know the tunes to (like chart songs or church music) and change the words, making them up as I go along, to be all about Arthur and how much Mummy loves him :) Because I do. And I want him to always know it. My little love.
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