Poop and sleep....

Every parent knows that at some stage... your life revolves around the two topics of Poop and Sleep. Currently, both topics are the hot topics and obsessions for our household.

After some initial success, we have not managed to replicate the Poop and Pee tricks that was promising a liberation from the crushing expenses of nappies (diapers if you are American...). Nappies just cost a lot of money, are terrible for the environment and are just a pain in the bum all around... plus, we aren't that much of an idealist to use cloth nappies. However, for quite some time, we did use bamboo fibre reusable nappies where were in really cool and vibrant prints and colours...

Anyway, I digress a little bit... (see the sleep obsessions....)... We had some success at the beginning, but since then... the little one will just sit at the toilet for about an hour (or just in her undies...), and if she hasn't wet her undies... she will immediately do a pee or poop as soon as we change it out for a nappy to go out of the house (or to go to sleep....). We've tried bribing her with chocolate and stickers (stamps worked for the older one... ), which leads me to think that she is holding out for a much more substantial reward.... possibly a Tesla or something on that order...

However, what really broke the older one was the little lie... we pretended that we had run completely out of nappies... perhaps it is time to move onto Phase 2.... Plan B... if that doesn't work... I'm not sure what we are going to start trying!

Which brings us to sleep... my wife and I have not had a complete night in our own bed for... about 2 months (maybe three now...)... we start off in our bed, and then sometime in the night... one or both of us will end up either sleeping on the matress in the older child's room or on the floor in the younger child's room. If we are lucky, only one of the kids will wake, but if we are unlucky, then both will wake sometime during the night.I have a preference for the floor, as it is a much darker room... I have trouble sleeping when it it light!

Anyway, this lack of sleep is really starting to get to me... I'm tired and a touch cranky... and I've started to need a nap in the middle of the day! During a rehearsal is fine, concert is tolerable... driving is a bad idea!

So, our trick tonight was suggested to us by the neighbour... we have a dream catcher (for the older one, she gets scared that she will have nightmares... she doesn't, but is scared that she might...). I've moved it up to the head of the bed... because, as my neighbour and daughter kept telling me, you don't dream from your feet.... however, no-one seemed to think that the hook being at the foot of the bed was a valid reason for hanging it there....

... well, that should hopefully sort one child... the second (the little one...), I guess we'll have to grit our teeth and get through the phase... she just screams, but she isn't awake... but flops and cries so much that she falls out of bed, and then is really awake!

However, if one of us can sleep a full night... that makes the possibility of alternate shifts possible! Failing that, I'm investing in ear plugs... my wife is lucky, I'm the light sleeper that gets woken first.... (on the other hand, I didn't have to give birth twice....)....