h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Glad you've had a decent night's sleep at last. Every sympathy. Nod was a baby angel, although Sic gave me merry hell whenever she had a tooth coming through (ie not continuously). And I'd forgotten (because that's what parenting does to you) that in fact I had waking-for-no-good-reason issues with Osh (now 7) which sound quite similar to yours. A book I found very useful is "The new baby and toddler sleep programme" by Dr John Pearce (ISBN 0-09-182591-1, published 1999) - I don't know if you've come across it? It's very good and much more modern than the stuff I normally quote and refer to! Well, it basically says that if you have a child that gets up too early, that's tough, but it's very good on eradicating waking up in the night. Let me know if you want my copy and I'll happily send it - email your address to me at dmlofas at yahoo dot com.

Mol

Seeing as mine are both early risers I think we have to live with that part - and when they are old enough to understand what 7am looks like on a clock they will get instructions not to wake mummy until that time and they can just play with each other

The night waking thing...am very glum about it but will keep on not feeding him for most of his night wakings in the hope he will just decide it isn't worth the effort of waking up. I'll check out my local library for the book you recommmended first, but if I don't find it I'd appreciate a read of your copy. Thanks

In the meantime, it is 24hrs since I fed him, my chest is about to explode!

Oh, that's a horrible feeling - it's unbelievably painful.

We *eventually* (at about the age of 5, don't want to depress you) managed to teach Osh that anything before 7 was Too Early (so far as I'm concerned, anything before 6 is still the middle of the night). Basically once he was old enough to operate the TV remote. I used to leave a drink and snack for him too. He went through a stage first of coming in to me and snuggling at my feet to watch the TV in our room, which was fine (I can sleep through Roly Poly Oly and Thomas and all the rest) provided he didn't try to talk to me - he had absolutely no concept that I was unavailable for conversation through being asleep. In fact he still doesn't as he did it to me again when we were camping this week, there being no TV.

Waking in the night is really difficult to deal with, especially with the second baby. All your instincts are telling you to go to the baby plus there is the possibility of more people being woken up. I remember being acutely aware that DH had to drive to work and Nod would be really hard work the next day if she was disturbed in the night. I needn't have worried because they both slept through any row that Sic was making, I just didn't actually discover this until an occasion where the tooth was through so there was no real reason for her to be awake in the middle of the night, and I realised she was having me on.

Just look forward to when they're 18 and you can recap on the difficult early years in front of all their mates

Mol