HIT AND MISS

Alert. Advanced. Intelligent. Spirited. It doesn't matter what spin you put on it - there's one thing for certain. Having such a child is very hard work.

Charlotte is so alert/spirited/advanced/intelligent* (delete as appropriate) she refuses to sleep. You may have gathered that from my previous posts! It's taken us two hours - and counting - to put her down tonight. I'm not sure if it's that she doesn't feel safe as she's dropping off to sleep, or she's scared of missing out on something. She's a baby - it's impossible to tell.

As for daytime sleeping. Still impossible. But she's not even five weeks old, so to make sure she at least gets  some sleep - if she hasn't gone down in her Moses basket after half an hour of trying, then it's the carrier, pram or car where we know she nods off (most of the time).

But even that can be hit and miss. Sometimes she's good as gold in her pram - other times she screams blue murder. And one time I've even managed to get her to sleep in her Moses basket for 45 minutes in the day after only 15 minutes of trying to put her down. Everything seems a bit hit and miss at the moment - what works one night, won't work the next.

But I'm also really trying to focus on the positives. Alright, the sleeping is definitely an issue. But two weeks ago, when she was only sleeping on us, we'd never have thought she'd have slept in her Moses basket at all. But we're slowly cracking that one, at night at least. There are many, many more babies who won't sleep at all at night, or won't feed - we don't seem to have any problems on that front.

And in the 20-minutes windows throughout the day when she's content and exploring the world and toys around her, Charlotte is a true, gorgeous delight. We know the difficult sleeping phase will eventually pass - but it's so hard to see past it at the moment.