Hudson’s new favourite activity is pulling himself up on everything – the sofa, starigate, me and he’s even tried to use Jim the cat (who ends up collapsing under Hudson’s weight!). After a week or so of very wobbly standing he’s now pretty steady so the head bumps are now few and far between unless he’s sleepy. He did look like Mr Bump for a while, he’s inherited skin that easily marks/bruises from my Mum’s family. Not only does he pretty much only hold on with one hand now but he’s tried letting go with both and can “cruise” up and down the sofa but he takes lots of steps forward if you hold his hands so I’m sure he’ll be walking way before he’s one.

Added bonus

He’s so mobile now with his speedy crawling and him constantly standing up so he is pretty tired by 6ish now which does mean he’s back to an earlier bedtime. I think the terrible nighttime issues we had a few weeks ago (him taking ages to get to sleep, lots and lots of waking in the night – sometimes for hours at a time – and not napping properly during the day) was the dreaded nine month sleep regression everyone talks about. He was nine months old last week but he does seem to hit all of the milestones and Wonder Weeks leaps a little early. 

Time to get our bed back

I’ve been convinced for a while that my proximity to Hudson during the night due to bed sharing is the reason why he wakes so often every night. He’s never even nearly “slept through” – I know this is normal for breastfed babies but I still think he probably should/could do a longer stretch than 3 hours of sleep at a time…Anyway, with this in mind we decided to try him in his own room.

I started by just putting a mattress on the floor so I could feed him to sleep then roll away from him without disturbing him. That part worked pretty well but he moves around so much in bed now that he was either bashing his head off the wall on one side or sleep crawling off the other side of the mattress! As a solution to this we moved his cot from being a co-sleeper in our room to a “proper cot” in his. This is where it all went a little, or a lot, wrong. I could feed him to sleep easily but the second I tried to put him down into the cot his screaming was like there were nails in his mattress. His upset was only made worse by me trying to rub or pat his back to comfort him. If I picked him up he would go to sleep again pretty quickly only for the whole awful cycle to begin again when I tried to put him down. It’s like his falling/startle reflex is still really strong as he was waking and getting annoyed when I made the smallest movement down with my arms. There was no way that he was going to calm down and just drop off to sleep in his cot no matter how long either of us sang to him and comforted him without picking him up.

Anyway, the short version is after a week of lots of crying and then extended periods of being wide awake because of that I’ve brought him back in with us. He’s still waking as often as before but seems to be unlatching a lot whilst feeding so I don’t know what’s going on really! It could be his teeth or the fact he has a bit of a cold, who knows. I think after Christmas we’ll try to get him in his own room again as I’m really really struggling with the broken sleep now and his tendency to start really screaming if I dare to do anything other than offer him a feed when he stirs. We’ll see how that goes…!

It’s Chrismaaaas!

Not that we feel overly Christmassy as it’s not been very cold and frosty yet. We usually watch all of the Harry Potter films during December but we’re currently only half way through the fourth one due to me not getting two hours downstairs in one block on any evening, *sigh*. Sam’s favourite festive film is The Snowman so we’ll maybe have to try and watch that today. 

We’re heading to Sam’s Dad and Step-Mum’s tomorrow for Christmas which we’re really looking forward to. I just have no idea how we’re going to get all the presents back home as we have lots to take with us as it is! Then we’re at my Mum’s on the 27th for a second Christmas Day. I’m glad we’re not staying at home this year as it means I don’t have to try to cook whilst, inevitably, carrying Hudson on my back. I’m going to take all the makings of a Gingerbread House to bake and decorate with our niece and nephew on Christmas Eve which I’m really looking forward to as Sam got me the set of cutters last year and I haven’t got round to using them yet. 

Hopefully Hudson will give me a good nights sleep for Christmas…!? One can only hope!