Mummy is so proud!

Dear Riley,
Mummy is so proud you went to sleep tonight without your bottle, and most importantly without crying. Not even a peep. Love you so much my little man. Please keep it up.
Love always Mummy. 

For those that don't know. . . we started to have some issues with Riley sleeping. He was no longer going down for the night (or day) with his bottle. He would just drink it and want to play. So we decided it was time to get tough on him and teach him how to sleep without it. We had agreed that would only do it while it was working but stop as soon as its not. I never intended to give my baby a bottle to go to sleep with and it was never something I was particularly comfortable with, but when you have a bubba like Riley you will do anything for a bit of sleep.

For a bit of previous history. Riley had/has pretty bad reflux, not so much now days but still at times. He was a very unsettled baby that didn't sleep during the day from VERY EARLY ON!!!! He would scream and scream and scream. It was horrible. We even went to sleep clinic at 3 months old. This is a place where you go with your baby and you have around the clock care to teach you how to get your baby to sleep. The success rate of these style of clinics is high. . . Unfortunately for us, Ri didn't understand this. We officially failed sleep clinic. The nurses wished me luck and said he one tough cookie. That's about the only thing they got right. So for the next 9 months it was struggle street. He would throw in the odd day nap but they were just cat naps and to make it worse he wasn't sleeping to well at night either. Lets just say it was doing my head in. The best way to get him to sleep was to give him a feed.

At around 1yo we made the decision that putting him down with a bottle would be so much easier then trying to hold him and then try and lie him down in his cot without waking him. It was brilliant. I finally got some me time. It worked a charm. He was having 2 day sleeps, 2 good day sleeps, which eventually worked its way to 1 really good day sleep. He was still waking overnight but not always as often (mostly due to his reflux though). I know I know, its not recommend because it could rot their teeth but by this stage I would rather a toothless baby then what I had. But Chris and I made a pack that as soon as it wasn't working or we could make him loose interest then we would take the bottles away.

We had managed at one point to wean him to just a bottle of water to go down with for his day sleep and the night. Then we had a spanner thrown in the works when he got sick and we had to do an overnight stay in hospital. We went back to milk in a bottle because it was the only way we could get him to drink anything. From there he went back to wanting it for sleeps. I tried to not but with the shop I just needed that break and to not have the screaming.

Which brings us to the last week or so. He started not having day sleeps but demanding a bed/bottle but only drinking the bottle and getting back up. Then it started at night too. Enough, it was time to go. The first night we took him for a drive at 9:40 on our 3rd year wedding anniversary just to get him to sleep. There was no way I was doing that the following night when he decided not to sleep. I tried to settle him in his bed a couple of times but it was becoming obvious it was just making things worse, so instead we deployed CIO (Cry It Out). I lied him down and told him enough was enough its bed time and mummy wont be coming back in. He was a little upset (emotional) when I first walked out the door but it quickly changed to just protesting. . . after 30mins he was a sleep.

The second night of CIO, was 30mins again but a lot less crying and not as loud. 3rd night we had a sleepover and we went to bed late so I gave him a sipper cup of milk which he drank half of before going into bed, but he was so tired and demanding bed that he dragged me there and lied himself down. I didn't have the heart to take is cup away (non-spill) and left him with it. Not a peep out of him. Then we come to tonight. I can't believe he actually did it. I'm shocked and so proud. We (Chris and I) went to have peek-a-boo (where we go in and look at him sleeping) it was so wonderful to see him happily a sleep, It brought a tear to my eyes. All the hard work, crap days and nights, they were all worth it. I was so PROUD!!!

And for a side achievement he hasn't had milk in a bottle for 3 days, only in a sipper cup. :)

Daycare!

We have made the decision to withdraw Riley from daycare. It really was needed. We are happy that its the right decision for us, but gosh I'm nervous. The impact of pulling Ri out lies solely on me, ok well maybe not solely Because I will have my mums, mother-in-laws (aka MIL) and SILs help at different times, but it wont be like my 2 days a week of bliss that daycare was providing. In saying that though, by not having daycare I'm hoping we are able to get into a much better groove at the shop. I wont be having Daycare "interrupt" our week and routine.

So today is Riley's last day of daycare. That's it we are all done, but not without its own issues. Grrr that place is so annoying. Firstly, I got asked why I specifically said to Ri's group leader that I didn't want Ri to move up to the next room at all this week and if they were thinking about it to call me and I will get him picked up. I just answered because I didn't see the need of changing what he knows before he was to leave. Then the director tried to tell me I hadn't paid a deposit for the security chip to get into the centre, which I had and she was quite surprised to hear I had the deposit slip in the car for it. So glad I kept that for a year and a half. I think she might have thought I was bluffing, and asked if I could go get it, sucks be her when I have proof. On top of that for some stupid reason our CCB hadn't been estimated this week so she was having "trouble" working out how much we were to be refunded. She even tried to tell me we owed money, YEAH RIGHT!! wow trying to weasel out of paying much? Geez! Then she told me she has to ring the owner to get him to look at it. OMG! So although today was his last day and I was meant to be picking everything up and finalising it all this morning, I now have to go back in tomorrow morning on my way to work and just hope she has finally written the check that should have already been written. ARGH!

Sorry rant over :/

Ahhh what to do?

Why is it so hard to make a decision? Why must I procrastinate? Time to pull on my big girl panties and make a move.

So my delima is that Ri is due to be moving up rooms at daycare, and this week I witnessed some unsavoury behaviour from what will be his new group leader. It has shocked me, and upset me. This is following my recent feelings towards the centre director as being inadequate and untrustworthy, but thats a whole other story of a bitchy personal attack, lets just say shes not the kind of person you would like to have a confrontation with. Now I have to decide weather or not I should pull him out of daycare.

You would think the answer is quite obvious, and really it is. My heart is telling me to pull him out. He doesn't need to deal with that, but then the other side of me says "tough love could do him some good, and stop babying him". But is it really babying him if I felt sad and intimidate by what will be his new carer? I can only imagine how that would make a little person feel. Then I think about the logistics of him not being in care, am I really prepared to have him 5/6 days a week with me at the shop and no "break day" for me? Could I handle that? I know I have done it a couple of weeks in a row before, but I was always glad to off load him to daycare whe he was well enough again. I do also have his nanny (my MIL) available to take him every now and again to give me a break and give Ri a break from me, as well as some social interaction with his younger cousin and baby cousin. There wll also be grandma (my Mum) ever 2nd week, that will hopefully come up and take him for a walk and some fresh air. So really it hopefully wont be as bad as I think it could be.

Now all I have to do is tell the director and give our notice. . . really not looking forward to that!