Well, goodness, gracious me!

She DID sleep through perfectly last night - she even slept past 7am which is unusual for her. (She was a bit clingy this morning going to the childminder and had a bit of a meltdown before bed last night, though, so the long sleep might mean she's coming down with some disease.).

I, on the other hand, woke up more or less on the hour from 2am to listen out for her. Now I must sleep train myself.

Oh, and I fully expect her to wake up in the night tonight so maybe it will be a case of "here we go again" for sleep training. My fingers are crossed and I do hold some hope that she'll sleep again but the hopes are not high.

Oh no, not again!

Oh dear, it does look like I might bite the bullet and try and sleep train Z again. She's woken up in the night for at least the last 3 nights in a row and I think I am going to try to break the habit. She's been demanding "out" and "daddy" whenever I go in and I have been taking her out of the cot, telling her it's time to sleep and sitting down and giving her a breastfeed having told her she's going back in the cot afterwards. She hasn't fussed about going back in the cot once she's had her feed so that's something, I suppose.

I am trying to decide whether my strategy should be not to take her out of the cot at all and just talk soothingly and tell her it's time to go asleep or to do it one step at a time - out of the cot but no feed tonight and see how that goes and then not take her out of the cot if she is still waking after that. Hmm...if I don't take her out of the cot, I am pretty sure there will be loud protests but it might be better to just go for it since I imagine she would protest at not being given a feed once she has been taken out of the cot. Gah.

With a bit of luck, she'll sleep through perfectly tonight and no training will be necessary but I'm not holding my breath!

Another update

Well, it's been a while and I am shocked that I didn't post during October since my attempts at conquering the IPC were very successful...ok, moderately successful...during that month. I actually gave up chocolate for a few weeks as I had got into the habit of buying it and gobbling it and not really savouring it. At the end of my self-imposed chocolate fast, we were in London and I indulged in hot chocolate Milano from Caffe Nero which is just very, very good.

I am now recommencing a chocolate fast as we are going to London again in a couple of weeks and I want to appreciate the hot chocolate Milano as fully this time as I did last time. Mmmmmmmmmm.

As for the beginning of the end of breast-feeding. Well, that didn't happen although the few missed feeds meant that my left breast went into weaning mode and is now, in the words of Z, "ack" and "no nice". I did Google this phenomenon and, apparently, breast milk can become salty when you cut down on feeds. I do want to wean her off but I am hoping it will happen semi-naturally. For example, I am heading away in March for a couple of nights without her and I am wondering if this will cause the other breast to produce salty, weaning milk so that she won't like it when I come back. We shall see. In the meantime, I must confess, that after 'plane journeys and time differences resulting in night wakings on holidays, I am back to giving her a little feed if she wakes in the night. It is infrequent so I don't really have the resolve to go through the middle-of-the-night crying, I think, especially when I feel the end is in sight.