Why won’t my baby sleep?

Tired Mum Versus Google…

Emily-Jane 2 Comments

TIRED MUM: Dear Google, can you die from sleep deprivation?

GOOGLE: In the 1980s, a researcher named Allan Rechtschaffen conducted a series of ground-breaking experiments on rats who died. After 32 days of total sleep deprivation, all the rats were dead.’

TIRED MUM: But what about humans? Google, what are the effects of sleep-deprivation on humans?

GOOGLE: Regular poor sleep puts you at risk of various conditions, including depression, heart disease and diabetes – and it shortens your life expectancy.

TIRED MUM: Oh god!

GOOGLE: Oh and it might make you obese.

TIRED MUM: Anything else?

GOOGLE: Hallucinations, possible brain damage…

TIRED MUM:  OK, ok stop. I don’t want to hear anymore. So what can I do? I can stop this, right? Google, how can I prevent the effects of sleep deprivation?

GOOGLE: Get some sleep.

TIRED MUM: But I have a baby!

Continue reading →

How to quit mornings with kids

Emily-Jane Leave a comment

Dear Children.

I am writing to inform you that I am taking a leave of absence from Mornings.

When I agreed to manage Mornings With Kids, I assumed that you would do as I say because you are children and I am a grown up and therefore, I AM THE BOSS. I envisaged spending breakfast time sitting around a table laden with fresh fruit, where you would eat your food in less than SIX MILLION hours and I would smile and sip on hot freshly ground coffee in my stain-free dressing gown. I had also anticipated that you would understand the meaning of ‘hurry up’ and would actually give a shit about ‘being late for school’. Continue reading →

Some refreshingly different ways to get your baby to go the f**k to sleep

Emily-Jane Leave a comment

TRYING to get a baby to fall asleep is a frustration that every parent will face at some point. And while some children drift off to dreamland fairly easily, others, however, just do not.

Neither of my babies liked to go to sleep. Some nights it could take anything up to four hours to get them to doze off, so I spent a lot of  time desperately browsing the Internet for The Answer.  As a result, I tried a lot of weird and wonderful techniques. Here are a few ways I tried and failed to get my babies to go the f**K to sleep:

Continue reading →

SLEEP-TRAINING FOR GROWN UPS

Emily-Jane Leave a comment

The Internet is awash with ‘research’ that shows sleep training is bad for our babies. However, there is also an abundance of ‘research; suggesting that NOT sleep training is bad for our babies. (The research is usually taken from studies of 4 babies, 2 kangaroo cubs and a tadpole so it is almost always definitely accurate). So when it comes to baby sleep, what bullshit advice are we supposed to follow? Continue reading →

How it really feels when you are too tired for biscuits

Emily-Jane Leave a comment

plate-of-biscuitsRemember before you had children when you and your partner used to have ‘biscuits’?

Really good biscuits that you could eat whenever and wherever you liked – in bed, on the sofa or even in the bath.

You would try all sorts of biscuits together; sometimes you would enjoy the comfort of a digestive, other times you would eat a whole packet of Hob Nobs just because you COULD.

Then you have babies and you struggle to find the time or energy to have any biscuits at all. You start to worry;

“What if we go off biscuits forever?’

“Are all the other parents having biscuits?”

“Will my partner eat biscuits with someone else? Someone with more energy and a whole tin full of home-baked cookies?”  

“What if we NEVER EVER get to eat biscuits together again?” Continue reading →

The Holiday Bedtime Diaries

Emily-Jane 3 Comments

IMG-20160903-WA0002

We just got back home after a family ‘holiday’ in Devon. It will come as no surprise to you all that bedtime away from home is even more of a challenge than bedtime at home. But the husband and I have been burnt before. We learnt the hard way that there is no point worrying about sleep on holiday so we were prepared to bugger up our bedtime routine in order to make our week less stressful.

I kept a little diary of our progress…. Continue reading →

This may be the last time to cherish every moment because they grow up so fast

Emily-Jane Leave a comment

cherishI have a confession to make.

When I was a new mum I did NOT cherish every moment with my baby. In fact, I actually wanted to punch most of the moments in the face. My life consisted of trying to get my daughter to sleep, trying to get some sleep and stumbling around the house like a zombie not cherishing anything at all BECAUSE I WAS TOO BLOODY TIRED. Continue reading →

How much sleep does a baby really need? Real Life People With Actual Babies reveal the answer

Emily-Jane Leave a comment

how much sleep should my baby get?

According to the latest set of pointless infant sleep guidelines by another Academy Of Expert Twats Who Have No Idea How Human Babies Actually Work,

‘Sleeping fewer than the recommended hours is associated with attention, behaviour and learning problems. Insufficient sleep also increases the risk of accidents, injuries, hypertension, obesity, diabetes and depression.’

Continue reading →

The pointless sleep advice parents are sick of hearing

Emily-Jane 2 Comments

The Institute Of Real Life People With Actual BabiesThanks to the Internet we now have parenting tips available to us 24 hours a day!

While we might occasionally stumble across some helpful advice, most of it is either totally useless or appears to assume that parents are idiots.

One area in which there is an abundance of guidance from ‘experts’ is how to get a baby to sleep.

For example:

Continue reading →