What have we been upto? Its been a while since I wrote a post so its time for an update.

Last week we went to Broken Hill. That is a 10 hour drive from our place. Quite significant with an 18 month old. We split up the trip - 4 hrs to Nyngan - stayed the night - then another 6 hours to BH.

I am one of those parents who doesn't let their child watch TV and would NEVER let their child watch a dvd player whilst in the car....oh how that has changed! A dvd player is basically an essential for a 10 hour trip (well...for a 4 hr trip or a 6 hr trip). I dug through our dvd's - and found two child friendly ones (a blinky bill one that I won in some competition and a Colin Buchannan one that I got from playgroup last year). I put them both on the ipad and thought I wouldn't need them but had them just incase. I am SO glad that I had them!!!

They were fantastic for after about 3 hours when OB was sick of looking out the window, we had finished the snacks, thrown the drink bottle on the floor, thrown all the toys away, pulled his shoes and socks off and was just full on red faced screaming. I attached the ipad to the back of the seat, put on blinky and bam...silence! He just stared at that screen for about half an hour! WOW. What a difference it made! It was great. I only ended up putting one of the 4 episodes of blinky on (im technologically challenged) so it went for 30 mins but that was enough time to calm him down into a relaxed state and he seemed to be fine when it finished.

We stayed with Joshs uncle, which was fabulous. OB slept each night 7-6.30am. Usually he sleeps till 7am but I think it was a tad colder in his room...not that i'm complaining - its still a great sleep! He did get a bit out of routine being away and being spoilt rotten.

We have been home for 3 days now and he is SLOWLY getting back to normal. We have had a few tantrums since getting back - mainly due to food. Because we were on holidays we just couldn't be bothered to be good parents and just let him eat whatever (and by that I mean muslei bars, babycinos, muffins and a few biscuits). And I think the main downfall was letting him eat WHENEVER. Usually he only eats breakfast, lunch and dinner so having snacks and eating whenever made him quite demanding for food and not so keen to eat his main meals (because he was full from snacks). So we are getting back to normal. It was really hard to stretch him out today when he was pointing to his char (obviously hungry) at 5.30 and we dont have dinner till 6. Luckily hubby distracted him and we were able to drag it out and he ate all his dinner (lots of veggies yay).

Well thats where we are at the moment. OB gets his 18 month needles tomorrow. Hopefully they won't affect him (none of the others did).

All in all - holidays are great. Having OB sleep all night and behave in the car (there were about 2 outbursts over the 20hrs of driving) made a big difference, I can't imagine how exhausting it would be if that wasn't the case.

Camping

I was so nervous about camping...but it was unnecessary. We did OB's normal bedtime routine, put him down at 6.30 in the tent, in the portacot and bam, he went to sleep. We tiptoed around him getting us into the tent - which was pretty noisy considering the zips and getting stuff from bags, but he stayed sleeping right through till 6.30am. I was so relieved.

We had such a great time camping. OB loved every minute of it. The second night he woke at 2am for an hour and then woke for the day at 5, but still proved that we could successfully go away overnight!it was great to trial it somewhere so close to home, so that we could sneak home if we had to.

We are currently moving to a 12 month old routine which pretty much lines OB's meals up with our meals. Cutting back to 2 breastfeeds a day (morning and night). His nighttime routine won't change - 5.30 dinner, bath, story and then bed.

Meat, Travel Sleep, Playpen & Teeth

Teeth

This week OB got his FIRST tooth! Yay.   I am surprised that he didn't make any of the usual 'teething fuss'. - Although he has been making lots of 'teething fuss' over the past few months. The night it came up he went to sleep at 6.30pm as per usual, and woke at about 4am absoloutely screaming. I thought it might be teething pain so I gave him some panadol and put him back to bed. When he woke at his usual 6.30pm there it was - a tiny little bud of a tooth. I put my finger on it and gee it was sharp!! I had no idea how sharp babies teeth were!!

Travel Sleep Training!

My beautiful OB ringing his bell...

Next weekend we are going camping with some good friends. OB has never lasted a whole night in his port-a-cot (except when he was younger than 4 months and didn't know any different). We are VERY nervous about how he will sleep when we go away for the two nights. So we have decided to sleep train, but in a port-a-cot. A few friends had mentioned that I should do this - sleeping him in the port-a-cot in his room and in different rooms of the house to get him used to sleeping anywhere. Today I set up the port-a-cot. OB had the time of his life playing in it whilst I was setting it up!!! BUT when I put him in it (and zipped up the side) - boy did he scream (and is still screaming). He has had one 10 minute stint in there - then I went in and lay him back down, gave him a few pats and told him it was sleep time. I don't think he listened. As soon as I was out with the door shut he started up again. But a bit softer than at the start. It might be a looooong afternoon!! Now hes having little spurts of crying with about 20 seconds of quiet, which for him means hes winding down. Hopefully by next weekend we will have had at least one full nights sleep in the port-a-cot. I should have started this earlier (and then we could have tried sleeping outside in it). I don't know how we will go in a TENT putting him down at his usual time of 6.30pm (with no black out blinds of course) in the LIGHT! Might have to put him down later....when the sun is actually down. Ps hes being very quiet in his room...if I had to guess i'd say hes down for the arvo (he got put down at 2:25 and its now 2:42). The plan is to give him one sleep a day in the port-a-cot until next Friday (when we leave). I'm hoping to have at least one night in it too, but will wait and see how the day sleeps go.

Playpen

In Simone Boswell's amazing book "Calm baby, confident mum" she talks about the benefits of playpens and puts playpen time into her routines. 

I LOVE the playpen. For a few reasons. 

#1 - Its safe. Everything in the playpen is OB safe (a lot of things in the rest of the house are not).

#2 - It gives me time to do the things I need to do (cleaning, cooking, washing, quiet time, book reading, bubble bath, etc).

#3 - It teaches him to have time by himself - to amuse himself and to be independent from mummy.

#4 - Gives him ONE place to make a mess (especially helpful if people are coming to visit and i've just tidied up).

When we moved house (August-ish) it took me a little while to set up the playpen (and find an appropriate place for it) and to actually put OB in it. We have lots of doors in our house so we can shut off different rooms which is great (and reduces the need for playpen time). This last week I have realised that OB has had barely any playpen time since moving and as such i'm re-introducing it into our everyday routine (for all the reasons mentioned above). 

I am starting with 15 minutes a day. Its not too long if he cries the whole time (hasn't happened yet - he usually cries for 1 or 2 mins then enjoys himself) but not too short that he doesn't spend any time in there. He's catching on again quickly!  I just put him in there and he whined (not even a cry) for about 20 seconds and then turned around and started playing! 

OB crawled into my lap and had a nap before lunch (first time he's ever crawled up and fallen asleep).

About 25-30kg fit in our freezer

Meat

This week we got 40kg of meat from a friend (who also runs a bull stud). We have SOOOO much meat! Not only do we know EXACTLY where it comes from, but its such great quality (barely any fat) - even the mince is delicious (and not disgusting like store bought mince). Its also really economical at around $10 per kilo (even for the eye fillet, T-bone, sirloin, etc). Yesterday I made rissoles with the first batch of mince. They were SO yummy!!!! And so easy!!! I got the recipe here. 

Home made rissoles

Weekends away

Over the weekend OB and I travelled to Katoomba Women's Convention. We left Friday midday and returned 7pm Sunday night. This was a pretty daunting task with an active 9 month old. I nearly pulled out at the last minute...but am thankful that I didn't as it was a wonderfully refreshing weekend with old and new friends :)

I took SO much stuff. Between the pram, capsule, cot, heater, bedding, extra clothes, extra food, towels, sleeping bags, monitor, toys and toiletries its amazing we fit everything in! (Luckily Liz has an iMax!). I tried to take enough stuff to make it as "like home" for OB as possible. I also tried to keep his routine pretty consistent even though we were traveling.

Things that I wouldn't do again:

* sleep OB in the pram - OB hates the porta cot (even though it's so cute!). I need to give him time before our next trip to become familiar with the cot so it isnt so strange. Friends have suggested giving him one of his day sleeps in the porta cot every ow and then so it is just a normal thing. Another friend suggested having it set up in his room and letting him play in it sometimes so he's familiar with it - although I don't know whether I was the cot to be for playing...just sleeping.

Things that I would do again:

*pack a few days before and keep going through to ensure I have everything. It was great being over prepared (much better than under prepared I'm sure!).  There wasnt anything that I wish I took but didnt.
*miss out on night time activities to give OB a consistent night time routine. I missed out on going out for dinner on the Saturday night, instead I bathed OB, read him a story and put him down at his usual time. This worked really well (with a 12 hr sleep). I'm a big fan of making the baby fit into our lives but it's also fair to be realistic (and not expect a baby to be up all night).


All in all it was a great weekend. I'll do an update soon as I've just started night weaning...fingers cross it goes alright tonight.