Sleep Nazi.

It’s official; I am now a sleep Nazi! My whole day revolves around the sleeping pattern of a ten-month-old baby. Every day is planned with military precision so that my little cherub can get his two hours of cot time twice a day. On a typical park outing, Jake can have exactly ten pushes on the swing, three turns on the slide and one tantrum before being bribed back in to the car. I find the lure of a rainbow paddle pop in the garden always does the trick! Gone are the days when Alfie doesn’t sleep full stop or just falls asleep in the car. Some days those car sleeps would last up to three hours and I would have to check on him every ten minutes. So annoying when you’re trying to get around IKEA!

The reason for my newfound strictness and clock watching behaviour can be attributed to our success at sleep school. Possibly the best parenting decision I have made so far and I am not alone. Nearly everybody I know has taken at least one of their babies to sleep school.

 Sleeping is a learnt behaviour and not a skill that babies are born with. This is just one of the many pearls of wisdom I learnt from my time at Masada.

Control crying never worked for me at home because I only had the crying and not the control. When you are sleep deprived you’re just too fragile to see anything through and consistency is the key to success. Sleep school teaches you the difference between crying and grizzling. They do sound very similar at one, two, three, four and five in the morning! All you hear is a distressed child so your maternal instinct is to cuddle and placate your child. You will spend hours rocking them, patting them and doing whatever it takes until they fall asleep.  What they really need is to learn to fall asleep by themselves so you really need to resist your natural reactions. Control crying gets a bad press and needs to be done correctly. A child should not be left to cry itself to sleep but there is a difference between crying and protesting.

Masada has a ninety five percent success rate and one mother in our intake questioned the five percent who didn’t succeed. Ironically she left after two days! We all felt for this young mother whose child was so tired and resisted the Masada method. We tried to support her but she was too anxious and not ready to change her thinking. Her actions were understandable. The guilt racks your body as you leave your baby in their own little dark gaol like cell overlooked by the staff. A Sodom and Gomorrah pillar of salt moment flashes through your mind screeching ‘don’t look back.” We all went back ten minutes later just to make sure it wasn’t our baby screaming. You might be wondering how we could possibly sleep even though we were all so sleep deprived. Drugs that’s how, which the nurses kindly distribute on nights one and two.

The other good thing about Masada is the mothers you meet there who support each other through the program. Many cups of hot chocolate were sipped after the bubs were in bed and friendships were formed. An incredibly strong group of women who for one reason or another found themselves at Masada. Their honesty and sense of humour concerning their situation will always remain with me. As will the story of the husband who made his wife brush her teeth as she was giving birth to their son! Apparently her breath smelt so badly that he was unable to hold her hand while she pushed! I think you can probably guess how we all felt about him!

The program worked for us and I am happy to report that Alfie can now get himself to sleep. There are always going to be bad days but you just have to be consistent and keep your eye on the clock. So if I say I can’t meet you for lunch there is probably a very good reason.

Party time.

Children’s parties are not what they used to be. For one thing, every child has to win a present during pass the parcel. I distinctly remember crying at my ‘fifth’ because I didn’t win! My mother took me to one side and gave me a good hiding (you can’t do that anymore either). Okay she didn’t smack me, not at the party anyway but maybe later when my spoilt brat-ness reached its’ birthday peak.

Nowadays, you can hire somebody to come and entertain your kids while you sip on your champers in the background. VCA is producing some really excellent children’s entertainers who will do anything for the right money.

If you can’t afford a professional or an unemployable actor, you can do it yourself. There is so much information on the net, websites dedicated to making your little cherubs’ day the best it could possibly be. All you need is a theme and you can bet your bottom dollar some parent will have bragged about every minute detail on-line. There are some very competitive parents out there.

Another option is to limit the number of invited children and pay for them all to partake in some experience like circus skills, cookery or crocodile bating. There is also the play centre party where all the food and entertainment is provided. These parties look pretty tacky but the kids love them and there is no stress.

 This year I decided to host Jake’s party at home, every other year we have battled it out for the pergola at the local park. My theme for Jake’s fourth birthday was pirates and initially all I was thinking about was the costume. But this party caper is addictive and after doing a quick Google search, I had decided on a pirate ship cake and telescopes (cardboard rolls) positioned around the garden.  Then I was thinking about how I could turn our decking in to a ships’ galley and if I could make the kids walk the plank right in to our swimming pool. Thoughts about the party began to consume my mind, how to make it bigger and better. Scott would have to dress up as a pirate and maybe he could make some treasure chests with the kids as they arrived. Maybe we could give them all tatts, real ones naturally as I don’t want the parents to think we’re cheap. The ideas kept flowing and it was all because of one website that had a ratings system. These people had gone to extremes with their chosen theme, from the invites to what the children took home in their goodie bags.  The following party received an honourable mention:

‘…when they arrived, we had them decorate treasure chests at the start which involved cigar boxes painted gold with sequins, stick on jewels and glitter glue for them to use.  This activity gave them the chance to chat to the Good Pirate" and get to know him a little.  They then had to swear to obey their Captain and have a fantastic time. As a reward they got to have their picture taken as a crewmate. For this we used one of those things you put your head through and take a picture of you as a pirate. We got one off eBay quite cheaply. During the party I printed these off and put them into the treasure chest that they had made…. The Good Pirate told them a story.  He used pirate figures that I had crocheted especially for the story…..’

Now I could have paraphrased all of that but I wanted you to see how crazy some people are when it comes to their kids’ parties. Bear in mind this party only got an honorable mention!

I did make Scott dress up as the good pirate and quite frankly he looked like a paedophile. The moustache didn’t do him any favors but on the plus side reminded me of why he shouldn’t do Movember!  I did make a pirate ship cake that turned up trumps; I was so high fiving myself over its success all day! I come from a background of fabulous birthday cakes- my mum is simply amazing in the kitchen. Her cakes are legendary- I have had birthday cakes in the shape of a girl, a guitar and Australia to name but a few. This year she is planning on making Jake a cake in the shape of a dinosaur and she will pull it off.  I went with a ship because my reasoning was that it could always be a shipwreck! Thank you Google, you again have given me the power to rip off somebody else’s’ idea!

The party itself was a success and the children seemed to enjoy themselves but maybe next year I’ll take them all to a play centre!