Ellen Barron Family Centre - Day 2

The day started at 7:10am......Woohoo, sleep in and what a fantabulous night!

A fashion parade in mummies shoes and undies

We had a morning meeting with the nurses about the previous night then headed down for breakfast, where the little poppet didn't eat much, and then went to the play room for a little play.  By the time we'd done all that it was about 9:30am and Merryn was starting to show signs of getting tired.  Time for our first effort of a daytime sleep using the new techniques.

As with all the previous efforts there was a nurse there with me but I was making the decisions about when to go in and what I wanted to do.  It only took us about 20 minutes to get her down and settled and then I sat with the nurse and we had a big chat.

One of the things I've noticed is that all the nurses spend a lot of time talking to you about how you are doing and what it's like at home and what you have in the way of help.  They are very obviously making sure the whole family is coping and digging into the reason why you are in there with your baby.

Mez slept for 3 hours for her daytime sleep, which I was completely unprepared for.  I messed around and played some games on my iPhone and made some phone calls before I realised I could actually have a nap myself.  Awesome!

After her sleep we headed down for a late lunch and it was after this that things went downhill.  On the way back up I mentioned to the nurse she wasn't really eating much that day.  The nurse suggested we take her temperature just in case and it turned out she was 37.2 degrees celsius.  An hour later it was 37.5 and the administrator had decided we had to be confined to our room and head home as soon as Andrew could come and get us.

I was really torn.  On one hand you can't sleep train a sick baby, on the other hand she had been picking things up so well and going home was just going to mean more endless nights of being up with the kids for me.  But it wasn't up to me anyway, so by 6:30pm Andrew had us home and I was putting Mez to bed.

The nurses have assured me we will be back in Ellen Barron in a few weeks time to have a full week with them.  I just have to try to do my best with the start we made.  Unfortunately last night reminded me why I had wanted to have dedicated time to Merryn and I got about 2 hours broken sleep as I bounced between 2 screaming (sick) kids.  I can't wait to get back to Ellen Barron!

N.B. I did manage to keep Mez in her cot until about 5am, despite all the mayhem, which actually made it easier for me to spend the hours with Connor in the middle where he refused to sleep.  I also didn't breastfeed her every single time she woke up, but settled her with pats and shushing.  Small step in the right direction I hope.  *cross fingers*