Yes it's time for another Geek Dad instalment! It's been awhile, but I think it's time.
For those who've been following, my little Moo is a little over 14 months old, which means she's toddling all over the place, asserting her personality and exploring the world with little to no fear.
Amazingly she is still sleeping through the night, and rarely wakes for loud noises. Such is the case once we hit 1845ish and she goes to bed, we pretty much have the house to ourselves.
Until 1845 however, the house very much belongs to her. If she wants to play with a certain toy, she will do so, and woe betide anyone who tries to stop her.
This is where last night came in. As you probably know my wife was away because of family issues and so it was means the Moo all to ourselves.
We decided (well she decided and I agreed) that we were going to go on an adventure, exploring the dark corners of the house, before setting up a shelter in between my bed and radiator, a good place to make shelter if you ask me, next to a heat source and sleeping arrangements.
Afterwards the little Moo acquired a form of transport, but required me to get it started, I however knew that time was drawing late, and play time needed to end.
The cries were incessant until I managed to get her into the bath where she got to splash in water and play with bubbles.
This gets me wondering about our current routine, and a possible need to teach her discipline or not.
You see, I love to see her play, however as with many children she doesn't seem to get tired (at leased not in a sensible time frame). However I know that if she has her bath around 1830, her bed time bottle around 1845 and then sleep by 1900 at the latest, she sleeps through till 0700 easily, and wakes up well rested and eager for the day ahead.
But at the same time I hate to stop her doing what she wants to.
I guess it just shows a different side to our own childhood. I remember when my parents would stop me from doing something I really wanted to do, I thought they were such fun spoilers. Now of course I realise that they wanted to let me do what I wanted, as seeing me having fun and laughing would have brought them as much joy as I get from seeing my daughter having fun.
However, they couldn't let me just do what I wanted, because that would have resulted in anarchy.
And so at roughly 1900 I finally put her to bed and got started on my own fun times including painting of my Seamus crew, which resulted in the following:
The rest of the crew have a long way to come, but I'm quite happy with master and avatar.
You always hear about how a photo hasn't done justice to a model/paint job and I'm afraid the same is true here.
Anyway, time for me to leave you all, stay safe and I'll see you breachside!
- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley
I love to read the little stories about your family, as someone that's about a year behind you with a 4 month old who's yet to get mobile it's delightful to read the antics.
ReplyDeleteAlso just to say I'm a tad jealous of the 12 hours sleep pattern, we've just switched from moses basket to cot and it's gone from a good 5-6 hours solid to 2 hours max, hopefully just short term until he reclimatises but could be a disaster!
I think the 5-6 hours sounds about right to me. When my Moo was that age we had just started putting her to bed at 7, however she required another feed at around 11-12, and would then sleep until around 6ish.
DeleteAlso for some reason my memory is telling me that's one of the ages for sleep regression, where they go back to being like new borns and sleeping for only a couple of hours straight.
I'm sure it'll be fine and I'm glad that you like my posts. When my Moo was born it was really hard to try and find writings that were honest and matter of fact, most of them either had a point to prove or were very condescending/patronising, so whenever I write about my experiences of fatherhood I "try" to just say it how it is, sometimes you have a fantastic day and everything feels grand, but sometimes you feel like the biggest shit there is.
Of course these are just my own experiences. I know that we've been so very lucky with having a great support network, a loving family, my wife is an amazing mum and Moo herself has always been very placid, and for no fault of our own, it could have been a lot worse, and it still could. Still have the terrible twos to look forward to.