Hi Jubear, Porsche, everyone,

Well first my expereince with a bad sleeper. I never had a routine with Noah, I just went with the flow. Right from birth, he would wake if he wasn't in my arms, slept for 20 mins on his back, and at night, his best sleep was for two to three hours. I spent many nights sleeping on the couch with him ( I know this isn't recommended). I was totally against letting him cry, probably to my own detriment, but if it took him sleeping with me, that's what I did.

When this arrangement didn't work for me anymore (around 4 months), I started making small changes to the family nights. This included introducing a night time routine, and moving him into his own room. I discovered he preferred to sleep on his stomach, and this made bedtime routines so much easier. I would give him a bath, then a breast feed whilst I sang nursery rhymes. I would then transfer him to his cot whilst singing. Over time I changed this to putting him to bed awake and singing him to sleep. As I had returned to full time work when he was just 8 weeks old, I didn't mind his needyness, it gave me good reason to cuddle him.

I found out over time I was the one who was encouraging his bad sleeping because I had insisted when he was young on always turning on a light to breastfeed, sometimes the TV too if he was taking a long time. I also was missing a lot of the early sleep cues and then trying to deal with an overtired baby. I learnt my lesson, and with my second, I had a nightime routine from 4 months, and I learnt early she too is a tummy sleeper. This ment the difference between 20 min naps, and three hour sleeps. I don't turn any lights on at night, and I don't talk to her. It's a cuddle, breastfeed, cuddle and then straight back to bed (she is generally asleep anyway). A couple of things I have found that help to settle her in the middle of the night if she does think it's time to play is my ipod playing kids sleepy music, another feed, a couple of times even a bottle of EBM to fill her up, and if necessary me singing nursery rhymes.

I would suggest a routine for nighttime bed, limiting day sleeps to get him used to sleeping more at nights, and reducing stimuli at night when he wakes. I use a dummy with Amelia and this is very comforting for her. Try tummy sleeping if he has good head control, and maybe a radio with classical music. If all else fails, hand him to daddy in the morning and go back to bed, they both need you to be well rested (says me with my eyes falling out of my head at 8pm )

Porsche - Yep, Amelia is meeting all of her milestones well ahead of time. She has an amazing cheeky character coming through, including crawling after me whilst laughing through her dummy, and then if I turn around she hides and chuckles. I love it. She finds her brother hysterical, and laughs so hard she runs out of breath. Generally at his bad behaviour which is all the encouragement he needs. She stands up on anything she can find now, the draws, the fridges, bin, lounge chair. Her latest trick is to let go and hold on with just one hand. Noah was the same, he walked at a little over 8 months. But they do come from a long line of early walkers, so what hope have I got? I just have to make sure she is well supervised and her environment is safe.

Anyway, bed is calling. I hope you are all well.