How do you survive the early weeks of mothering if you don’t co-sleep?  (DH wants me to call DD4 Peta on here btw!)

On the first three nights, as well as waking to feed her, we were up with Peta in the middle of the night because she had dirty nappies and also just because she was awake for some time.  Since then she hasn’t needed a night nappy change at all, and hasn’t woken for any longer than it takes to latch on and feed sleepily while I drop back to sleep myself.  She’s probably waking about 3-4 times a night for a feed, but I hardly have to wake at all to latch her on so it may well be more often.  I’m tired from about 4pm onwards, but other than that I’ve been recovering from her birth very easily (also helped by not being anaemic at the end, having a short labour, and not losing much blood) and I’m sure a lot of this is because I’m not having to wake up properly at night.  If I wasn’t sleeping next to her, I wouldn’t be woken by her stirring in her sleep - I wouldn’t cotton on so quickly and she may well be much more awake by the time I got to settling her so I’d have to stay awake much longer to get her back to sleep.  I’d also have to wake right up to go to her cot/moses basket and sit up with her while she fed and not get back to sleep until she’d finish.  And what if I were formula feeding!  Latest government guidelines say that the safest way to make up formula milk, to kill as many bugs as possible in the powder itself, is to make up each feed as you need it, with boiled water that has been left to cool for no longer than half an hour, and then let it cool before you give it to your baby!  We’d either have to bankrupt ourselves by buying ready-made formula milk (which is sterile) for the night, or get no sleep whatsoever in the early weeks. 

And what about the benefits to Peta?  She has learnt very quickly the difference between night and day - when it’s dark and she gets fed the minute she stirs then she doesn’t wake up.  When she stirs in the daytime, it’s light and she gets lots of attention from everyone who is also awake!  She doesn’t have to waste any energy crying so can use all her energy growing and developing.  She doesn’t have to have her brain bathed in the stress hormones crying babies release when they’re scared they’ve been abandoned (evolutionarily important response to waking alone - need to get the attention of an adult before a sabre-toothed tiger eats you!), which ‘they’ now know is really bad for babies’ brains and their emotional development.  She doesn’t have to spend hours being re-settled because she never wakes up fully in the night.  And she doesn’t have a totally exhausted, sleep-deprived mother.

And what about SIDS?  Statistically, she’s no more likely to die from anything in our bed than she is if she were sleeping in another room on her own.  Theoretically, she’s less likely to die from SIDS because she’s got the constant reminders to breathe from me, and the temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate and hormone regulation from my body.  She’s also very unlikely to be squashed by me because I’m breastfeeding her and my hormones keep me in a light enough state of sleep to be aware of her even while I’m asleep.  If she were to stop breathing (as Cotton-tail once did), I would know instantly and, if my own breathing weren’t to get her started again, me picking her up and screaming in fear certainly would!  And I’d get to her so much sooner than if I picked up on the fact she wasn’t breathing by wandering into her room, or even noting on one of those super-dooper monitors.

I really don’t know how I’d cope if we didn’t co-sleep - I can only be thankful that I discovered Three In A Bed by Deborah Jackson before I even got pregnant with Flopsy - it’s changed our lives as parents and the lives of our children forever.

Baby Maia Sarah arrived on Monday 22nd September at 1.25am weighing 8lb 9.5oz.  Ideas for a blog pseudonym, as she isn’t a Peter!, very welcome please!

Here’s her birth story - apologies for the capitals for her sisters’ names - something to do with doing ‘find and replace’ when re-writing the story for the blog!

We were unsure of my dates with this pregnancy as I was breastfeeding when I got pregnant and I had no scans.   My LMP date gave me a date of 4 September. The date of the first
positive test (assuming it would have been positive the day my period would have been due ie. two weeks post-ovulation) gave me a latest due date of 10 September.  After discussion with the MW we settled on a happy medium edd of 7th Sept.  The MW did a VE on the 12^th, with a view to doing a sweep if it felt favourable (at my request – I’d had a good two+ weeks of pre-labour runs of contractions and was getting a very achey pelvis, and struggling to care for the other three on my own) we changed it to the 12th as she didn’t feel from her immense
clinical experience that I was really ‘term’ until then, and she also wanted to keep the hospital off my back. She didn’t do a sweep on the 12th as she didn’t think it would work.

And that was it! I had no more contractions other than the odd strong braxton hicks for days and days!   Less, even, than I’d been having before the sweeps!  I came to terms with the fact that the baby just wasn’t ready to be born, but I really didn’t understand why my 4th baby would be so late in coming, after my first three were nothing like as long gestations (40+6, 40+3 and 39+6) – our latest date took me to 40+8 even with the sweeps!  I decided I would start monitoring on 24th (41+5 or 42 weeks) as I was determined not to be induced (no way was I going into hospital for the birth!).  In the meantime I kind of began to feel quite peaceful and stopped noticing every stronger-than-usual braxton hicks.  With my last two labours, as soon as I had more than a few slightly painful braxton hicks, I’d gone straight into labour-mode and had worked really hard to keep them going.  Consequently I’d had very, very long and exhausting latent labours, where I’d been officially ‘in labour’ thanks to VEs showing I was more than 3cm dilated before labour proper kicked off and took 5 hours with MOPSY and 3 hours with COTTON-TAIL.  This time I just gave up on the hard work and really felt that when labour started, it wouldn’t stop for anything, so may as well rest as long as I could. And I was right!  After 3 whole days with no signs of labour whatsoever (no more pinky discharge, no strong braxton hicks, no nothing!) I went to bed on Sunday (21^st) after an hour or so of very mild, but frequent BHs which I’d ignored.  At 10.30pm I felt my first painful contraction.  I had another one about 10 minutes later.  At 10.50 I had a really, really painful one that I had to breathe through and I told DH about them.  He suggested we try to rest and ignore them as we’d had so many false starts.  I agreed, but had another whopper at 11pm.  I got up to go to the loo and had another one.  I suggested we go downstairs and start clearing the room to get the pool ready, just in case it was another false alarm (really didn’t believe it was it at this point) and we agreed not to call my mum yet, even though it takes her an hour to get here.  The contractions were coming every couple of minutes at this point, and I was having to really stop and breathe through them so after two more contractions, at around 11.30 I did ring mum.  Then I decided I would call the midwife and told her what was going on and we agreed I’d ring her around midnight to tell her how things were going.  I think it was only then I really thought that this wasn’t going to stop and I really was going to have this baby in the next few hours.  I started needing DH to come and rub my back and hold the bottom of my bump during each contraction and I decided we needed to stop messing around clearing the room and just push everything to one side so we could get the pool up – the contractions were very close together and very painful and I was starting to worry that I’d have to have a land birth!   I called the midwife again at 11.50 and said I wanted her to come asap.  She arrived at about 00.10, took one look at me, and started writing notes.  The pool was up by this point and it had a couple of inches of cold water in and I’d switched the hose over to the hot tap, all the time having to stop and get DH to come and rub my back and bump every minute or so, interrupting him getting bits and pieces together.  I heard a bump upstairs and went into the hallway to see FLOPSY (5y) sitting at the top of the stairs so I told her the baby was coming and asked her to come downstairs and snuggle on the sofa until Grandma got there as I couldn’t get her back into bed and neither could Daddy as I needed him.  The MW got FLOPSY comfy on the sofa while I continued having contractions, my out-breaths becoming much more audible as I moaned to cope with them and thought about waves.  Then we realised the hot water had run out and we needed to start boiling kettles and pans of water!  Each contraction was lingering for a really long time after the peak and I was coping with the last bits on my own as I needed DH to get on with getting the pool ready.  The MW checked the baby’s heartbeat and I saw FLOPSY smile when she heard it.   Mum arrived at 00.20 and asked FLOPSY if she wanted to stay up or go to bed.  FLOPSY decided to stay up and asked Mum to get her some books to look at (Mum thought it was actually FLOPSY’s very sensible way of taking her mind off me being in pain), which Mum did and then got on with helping DH and me fill the pool.  Eventually, at about 00.45 it was just about deep enough for me to get in and I did so, totally relieved that my back ache was eased so much.  The water also gave me two nice long breaks between contractions – the calm before the storm!  I spent the rest of labour in my usual position of kneeling forwards hanging over the edge of the pool.  After a few more swiftly worsening, and very, very long contractions, I asked DH to get in and the MW to get the entonox ready.  The MW listened to the heartbeat again and the machine made a funny noise at the end – I joked to FLOPSY that it sounded like it was singing and the MW misheard me and said ‘sing if you think it’ll help!’…so I did!  The next few contractions I let my outbreaths change pitch and found that helped cope with the pain a bit more.  Then I started having using the gas and air and almost immediately the contractions got even more painful (I guessed the gas and air helped me relax) and even longer.  I managed to get high enough to really moan through the contractions, though, and I think I got through around three really, really long contractions that way before I noticed the MW come over from the sofa and start reminding me to breath in as well as out!  After she reminded me for the third time I did something I’ve never done before in labour…swear at her!  She laughed and asked my Mum to come over and hold my hand so she could pay attention to the other end.   It was at this point, I realised afterwards, that FLOPSY disappeared off, but it can’t have been for more than a couple of minutes because she was back as soon as Maia was born and that didn’t take long at all.  Unlike when I had COTTON-TAIL, I didn’t feel Maia moving down ready to be born at all, and didn’t realise that she was coming until her head was nearly out and I have to say that that was the most fantastic feeling in the world!  To be so massively overwhelmed by the power and length of my contractions and then to know it won’t be very much longer at all was really motivating and, although I hadn’t been pushing, or even feeling an urge to push (as with COTTON-TAIL) as the contraction started to wear off, I did push a little just to get her head fully out because I could feel it stinging and knew there was only a tiny bit left inside!  Then it was only a minute break between contractions and I sat back onto my heels because I wanted to catch her (Dh caught the other three) and suddenly there she was, on the floor of the pool in front of me.  I picked her up and held her close and…wow!  What a feeling – another wonderful, empowering, exciting birth!  Mum ran off to get FLOPSY and to wake MOPSY.  It was 1.25am. Unlike the last three births, I didn’t bleed at all in the pool so stayed in and DH and I cuddled our new baby while FLOPSY and MOPSY leant over the side of the pool watching her and welcoming her and waving rattles at her.  After about five minutes, I felt another contraction coming on so asked for the entonox again and took as much as I could before I felt the contraction wearing off and I remembered I really needed to push when it came to the placenta!  Not having needed to push out the last two babies, I kind of forgot that placentas need a bit more effort from me so I quickly gave a couple of pushes and out it came with a little bit of blood.  Such a difference from the last three births where I lost a fair amount immediately.   We climbed out of the pool and I lay down on the sofa with Maia next to me and the placenta in a sieve behind her!  The MW took cord blood (as I’m Rh –ve) and then went to write in the notes.  After a while the MW came and asked if I wanted to keep the placenta attached or to cut the cord, and if so, when.  I decided to get it cut then and then I could change position and try to get Maia to feed.  Mum cut the cord with both girls watching and I rolled onto my back and put Maia on my tummy, at which point she started feeding and didn’t stop for the next hour!  I had a small 1^st degree tear that didn’t need stitching, and I lost hardly any blood.  I’ve really been very lucky, and quite clearly the few days break between pre-labour contractions and the real thing was very helpful.  The labour was the perfect length IMO – long enough to get used to coping with the contractions, but short enough to not be exhausting.

Just made our first order of Christmas presents!

The only year we haven’t had trouble making up the money afterwards was the year Cotton-tail was born and we had everything bought well in advance, so we have decided to do that this year!  Oh, and make all the presents for adult family members too - have lots of ideas up my sleeves!

What a huge number of incredibly balanced and sensible comments have been posted in response to this most apalling of articles in the Independent the other day.  Anyone who is in any doubt about how HE works should read through all the 220+ comments and anyone who is an HEor and wants a burst of pride for being one should do so too!

I’ve just come downstairs this morning to find DH and Flopsy looking at the Natural History Museum on google earth.  We went there, recently, with Flopsy and Mopsy and they loved it.  I don’t know how long they’ve been looking for things on there, but half an hour since I got up, I can still hear them in the next room exploring it.  DH showed Flopsy a few London landmarks, and she got very excited when she saw a sky-scraper – she’s a bit keen on those at the moment…not sure where she’s learnt about them!  Then DH got up to do something else leaving Flopsy to explore on her own – these are the things I’ve been hearing:

“I want to look at the whole world ball now, Daddy”

“Hey Daddy, look!  It’s all blue!  I’m in the sea!”

“Now it’s all white – I’ve found some snow!”

“Daddy,  I’m much better at this than you, aren’t I?  I think I am!”

Cotton-tail’s now downstairs – had a temperature all night and still does.  She’s taking turns being cuddled by DH and me and is a little subdued but otherwise herself. 

Mopsy’s still in bed – she needs to sleep late in the mornings or she gets way too overtired.

 We have our home ed group this afternoon, which we all look forward to, and is the reason DH is off work today.  Mustn’t forget to remind the girls to water their cress seed experiment!

Mopsy is still working on her alphabet book; Flopsy is sitting in the corner reading her new ‘first dictionary’

I’ve been prompted by a post on Sometimes It’s Peaceful to post about what we’ve been ‘working on’ this last week.  One of the strangest things about autonomous learning, I’ve found, is the frequency with which children actually ask (beg, sometimes!) to do things that most of us autonomous home educators would steer well clear 0f - real ’schooly’ things.  But then is the reason because they have never been put off schooly things because they’re done on their own terms - when and how they like, for as long or as little as they like?  I think so, and I love the freedom of being able to say ‘ok, you don’t want to finish?  that’s fine - do you want to finish it another time, or do you want me to finish it for you?’.  There’s no pressure - it can just be fun.

Anyway, Flopsy has been asking to make an alphabet frieze for sometime now - she doesn’t like having to ask things and is very into writing little notes and lists at the moment but fed up of asking us, not only how to spell words, but also if we can write the letters for her to copy (she’s not confident enough to get the letters the right way round etc. yet).  So she wants something on the wall she can refer to whenever she wants (we already have a number line used for similar purposes!).  Mopsy hasn’t outright said she wants to learn her letters, but seems to be very interested in letters at the moment and loves projects with a passion.  So we’ve made this:

I printed all the letters out off the computer for them to colour in and cut out (they love cutting and colouring at the moment) and then my cousin (who’s staying with us at the moment) drew them pictures requested by them that began with the letters they were in charge of colouring in.  So Flopsy has done the posters with ABC, JKL, STU and VWX, each time thinking up pictures what she wanted drawn for her letters.  Mopsy did DEF, GHI, MNO, PQR and YZ and chose from a selection of pictures that Flopsy had thought up for her.  Flopsy wasn’t interested in doing any writing for under the pictures, but Mopsy wanted to so I wrote them for her to copy and she’s done an incredible job!  You might be able to just about read her ’pig’ and ‘queen’ but she also had a go at ‘mouse’ and ‘net’.     

Flopsy, our little butterfly, didn’t have the stamina to do much of it, and only did one poster per session (it took about three sessions, but my cousin and I kept saying we were happy to finish it for them if they got tired) whereas Mopsy, our attention span queen, did two and then only stopped because Flopsy had started doing something more interesting to her!  She (Mopsy) was disappointed when it was all finished and wanted to do another one, but we’ve run out of wall space so she made a poster with her name on it and lots of other things that start with A:

She seems to see ‘A’ as her name, so I was keen on the poster idea to help her realise that there’s more to her name than just ‘A’ and also that there are other words that start with ‘her letter’.  I know she would work this out anyway, given time, but she wanted to do the poster, so we did it!  She also, as you can see, had a go at writing some of the words herself and has done a fantastic job :-) 

This still isn’t enough though, so she’s now working on an alphabet book, along the same lines as the frieze and has nearly coloured all the pictures and is moving onto the letters.  She’s made books like this before and will spend, quite literally, hours on them at a time, so I’m fairly certain it will get finished.  Flopsy’s not really a project person so it makes for a pleasant change to work with a child who learns in such a different way.

Flopsy has been spending a lot of time looking at the frieze and then persuading us all to sing the ABC song with her - she obviously knows it very well, but Mopsy doesn’t so is automatically getting a lot of practice at the names of the letters and the order they come in.  All on their terms, in their own time, in their own way, when they want and for as long or as little as they want.  And most people in our culture don’t believe children will learn anything if they’re not taught it - pah!

A good friend of mine has recently decided not to send her children back to school next week and to start on the HE journey instead.  Naturally we’ve been corresponding a fair amount by email - I’ve only met her a handful of times IRL, but she’s stayed with us once and we are in contact quite a lot.  I’ve never met her children but she’s, obviously met ours.  She’s been considering HE on and off for some time but she says that meeting with other HE families has been one of the things to make her confident enough to take the plunge.  She says that our family seemed so relaxed and happy when she met us and wanted that for her family again.

Lovely of her to say so, but I thought we were a pretty stressy family!  Either we’re all very good actors, or we do have an underlying peace within our lives.  I tend to think that maybe we are a very happy, relaxed family but is it just because we HE?  No, I don’t think so, and I don’t think it’s because we are brilliant parents either (because we are so not brilliant parents!  We are constantly getting it wrong, are grumpy and impatient, and all the things that all parents are!).  I think it’s because a lot of the stress within families comes from trying to conform - whether families are doing this consciously or sub-consciously.  And I think that this starts from the minute the first baby is born - or even before that.  I’ve written before about the effect of disempowering on the whole of parenting (or what I believe about it anyway), but I also think that the pressure to conform is also heavily to blame for a lot of the unpleasant side of parenting nowadays.  The pressure to have your baby in hospital.  The pressure to have your baby sleeping through very young.  The pressure to have your baby take a bottle, even if they’re breastfeeding.  The pressure to stop breastfeeding after some ridiculously young age.  One of the best things I ever read about parenting was in a book called The No Cry Sleep Solution - we were keen to get Flopsy self-settling once she was about 5m old (because, of course, the world will come to an end if she keeps on feeding to sleep - or she’ll still be doing it when she’s 18 years old) but didn’t want to leave her to cry.  But what this book said was ‘does it bother you?  or does it bother everyone else?  If it doesn’t bother you, and you’re only doing ’sleep training’ because you feel you ought to, then don’t do it’.  It changed my whole outlook about parenting forever.  I didn’t mind feeding her to sleep.  In fact, I quite enjoyed it - the lovely way she’d be all wired and hyped up and then her body would gradually relax in my arms until she was fast asleep and all warm and cuddly and lovely.  She fed to sleep for the next two years when she weaned and then *gasp* somehow managed to get herself to sleep just being cuddled.  Except we’re not allowed to cuddle our toddlers to sleep - they need to learn to go to sleep alone (even though adults aren’t expected to).  But luckily for Flopsy, by this time we couldn’t care less what the rest of the world thought - we could do what was right for Flopsy and we stayed cuddling her to sleep.  At the age of 5, she can get to sleep on her own if she wants to, but she usually likes one of us in the room with her.  That’s fine by us - she doesn’t take long to get to sleep.  She doesn’t like being cuddled to sleep now, mores the pity I think, but we’re quite happy spending 10 or 20 minutes listening to our children’s breathing slow and settle before we get our hour or two together downstairs without demands for this, that and the other!

What I’m trying to get to, in a very long-winded way, is that once you stop bothering what other people think, you are free.  You are very, very free.  And your children are too.  You have the freedom to do what is right for your child regardless of anything outside of your family.  You have the freedom to continue breastfeeding for as long as you and your child are happy to.  You have the freedom to let them sleep in your bed for as long as you and your child are happy to.  Oh hang on, but aren’t adult beds too small to have three (or more) children squeezed in there - how does anyone get any sleep?  Oh yes, it doesn’t matter.  We have the freedom to say ‘who says we need to stick to a king-size bed?  why don’t we just put a single alongside and have a room that is just full of bed that we can all snuggle in together?’. 

How does this lead on to HE?  I so often hear of parents actually trying desperately to change their children just so they will manage in school.  Of course, that’s very kind of their parents - you don’t want your children to find school difficult when you could make life easier for them by ‘making’ them more confident, or learn their letters very young (or not, maybe - maybe holding them back so they’re not top of the class even).  Or you could even use your ‘freedom to do what’s right for your child’ to decide not to send them to school.  You could say ‘I don’t want to mould my child to fit some institution.  I want to see my children blossom and grow in the way they’re meant to and in the time-frame they’re meant to’.  This will be different for every child, which makes school the worst place to send them because school doesn’t allow for children to all be different - to all be ready to read at different ages, or to be ready to be confident at different ages, or even to just be different!  School tells parents that they’re concerned because their child has only one friend.  Or that they don’t have any special friends.  Or that they like spending a lot of time on their own reading.  Or that they can’t be dragged away from the painting table.  Why are any of these things a concern?  They’re just a sign that all children are different and like different things, and make friends in different ways.  But so many parents trust the teachers, because they’ve got the training, and start working out ways to change their children to fit the mould a bit better.  Not us!  We have the freedom to decide not to change our children.  They don’t go to school or nursery and we are not interested in other people’s concerns about our children.  We are only interested in *our* concerns about them and how *we* can help ensure their happiness and security in the way that is best for *our* children.  And we have the freedom to do that because we are used to not conforming - it was long, long ago we threw off the shackles of doing what the rest of our society does.  I think that’s what makes our family seem relaxed and happy - the fact we *all* know there is no pressure to do things just because everyone else does them.  Flopsy knows she doesn’t have to read to us if she doesn’t want to - she hardly reads to us at all now, but she reads to herself all the time and enjoys it and that’s what’s important.  Mopsy knows she doesn’t have to stop her painting if she doesn’t want to - she only needs to stop when she’s finished. 

And the other thing is this.  We have the freedom to see a worrying change in our children and wonder why it is and do whatever it takes to sort it out.  We have the freedom to know that a child exhibiting signs of insecurity, however self-confident and happy they seem the rest of the time, probably is insecure and the reason needs to be discovered and sorted out.  I’ve heard parents say how much their children change when they go to school, usually in negative ways ‘but I know they’re happy there because they say they are’ or ‘because the teacher says they are’.  I’ve heard parents desperately asking for help for their newly bed-wetting 4yo ‘but I know it’s not school [even though it started when they went to school] because they love school’.  I find it very hard not to shout OPEN YOUR EYES!!! at these parents.  Just because a child seems fine on the outside, does not mean they are fine on the inside.  Children often don’t realise they’re not fine, but their subconscious mind cleverly finds ways of telling us that they’re not fine and, as parents, we should be picking up on those signs and doing something about it.  But how do you do something about it if you don’t trust the signs, or if doing something about it means not conforming and that’s something you haven’t freed yourself up to do yet?  How lucky those children are whose parents are not only aware of doing things differently in order to make things right for their children, but also have the freedom to do the things that are right for their children.

And I’m not suggesting for one minute that it’s easy to break away from ‘the done thing’.  I’ve been doing it for three children now and am fairly non-mainstream in nearly everything, but I still struggle with some things.  I struggle with letting them have messy hair.  I struggle with letting them wear very odd clothes (I have relaxed enough to let them wear fairly odd clothes, but some things I just can’t stop myself persuading them not to wear!).  I struggle with letting them eat what and when they want when we’re out with other families sometimes (not always).  There are other things, I’m sure, that I have to keep reminding myself aren’t important in the grand scheme of things, and certainly not as important as my children’s happiness and security but I keep on trying.  And I’m loving it!  I’m loving being a mum.  I’m loving having my children around me the whole time.  They drive me crazy; I get bored; I get impatient and lose my temper; I say things I regret immediately; I do things I regret immediately; I badger them about things I shouldn’t; I get it wrong; they irritate me BUT I wouldn’t change a thing because, despite all those things they also delight me; they charm me; they make my heart melt; I enjoy them; I enjoy learning with them; I enjoy watching them play; I love them snuggling up to me in the night; I love all the kisses and cuddles; I love sharing books with them; I love helping them play on the computer; I love taking them places and sharing their wonder at new discoveries; I love watching them making friends; I love seeing them making up wonderful games with eachother and with their friends.  What a lot I’d miss if they were in school or pre-school.  I hope my friend loves it as much as I do