Sleep.

Sleep? What is this sleep you speak of? I kid. In fact, sleep seems to be happening a lot more than I could have ever hoped for with two kids. Throughout February we tracked mine & David's sleep patterns with Kiddicare and it's fascinating to look back on. Iain has questioned why David is such a good sleeper, given that John was well over a year old before he started sleeping through the night, which was quickly ruined by sleep regression - it's only been for around 6 months now that he's managed to continuously go 12 hours undisturbed through the night.

So David is a nice change. Perhaps it's because we're over the first time parent jitters (checking their breathing every 10 minutes, picking up at every slight whimper, afraid to use a dummy in case of missing hunger cues... sound familiar?), deciding that after reading Gina Ford, Elizabeth Pantley & Tizzie Hall that babies don't in fact follow books, or it could just simply be that David is a better sleeper. Clue: I'm pretty sure it's the latter. I'm under no illusion that this won't change at some point, I mean, we've still got the dreaded 4 month sleep regression to hit us! But here's how sleep has been going for us so far...

The morning David was born, we were all prepared for being home that evening, unfortunately, minutes later I had a post-partum bleed and our plans of heading home that afternoon were dashed. So David & I spent his first night earthside in hospital. I started off well, with great intentions of having David in his cot and putting him back their after each feed. Then reality hit! After his first night feed, he was in the bed with me and there he stayed until the next morning. Co-sleeping. As controversial as it may be, it works for us. It was something we fell into with John after I dosed off during night feeds and what started with part-time co-sleeping, quickly turned into full-time upon the realisation that we all slept more & better if John was in the bed with us.

So, when David was born and our first night was spent co-sleeping, I decided I wasn't even going to fight it. With John, I felt guilt & fear when we first started co-sleeping, spending many a night trying (& failing) to get him to sleep in his moses basket. But this time, I knew co-sleeping wasn't actually going to kill my baby and that in fact it held many of it's own benefits. So ever since that first night, David has slept right by my side. We have since made a DIY co-sleeper cot (see photo above), allowing us all a little bit extra room but with the security of him still being right there.

But how does our co-sleeping stance affect our sleep? I truly believe that co-sleeping equals more sleep for us all. Not only does it make those early morning feeds so much easier (pop him on the boob, fall back asleep, leaving him to carry on) but it also means I get more sleep as I can see, hear & feel him. SIDS is a constant worry for parents and knowing that David is right there and perfectly ok saves on hours of listening for his breathing & wondering if he's warm enough.

Recently, David has been going to bed (in his co-sleeper cot) around the same time as John, so 7pm. He'll tend to sleep right through until 12am-1am when he'll wake for a feed and then dose straight back off again - usually I'll fall back asleep too which  means he tends to stay asleep right beside me. Around 3am he'll wake for another feed, after which I'll usually move him back to his co-sleeper cot. By 6am, he's up and ready to face the day - something he loves to vocalise, usually waking John! Occasionally I'll try and coax him into another half hour with his dummy but this is usually met with further protests of laughter & screeching.

Day time naps are still pretty erratic. I tend to pop David into his co-sleeper cot whenever he shows signs of tiredness. This means he could have 3 decent naps a day, or 6+ short cat-naps - it's all really dependant on what John allows him to have! Picture John bursting in on a sleeping David and shouting, "Dayday wake? Dayday wake!".

This is a sneak peek at David's Kiddicare Sleep Diary. As you can see from the shaded areas, he sleeps rather a lot! The second most common appearance is from the letter "F" which is representative of when David feeds - at the moment we're still very baby-led so this is pretty erratic. There's also "H" for happy, "A" for active, as well as "G" for grumpy & "C" for crying, the latter two which rarely appear due to David's great nature.

As part of the Kiddicare Sleep Diaries, I too kept track of my own sleep & moods. Generally, my night time sleep was similar to David's, apart from the odd extra night waking from when John had woken. The biggest thing it made me realise was that I should really go to bed earlier! Particularly since David is so fond of his 6am wake-ups and John's reluctance to let me nap in the same way as his little brother throughout the day.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks as I'll be sharing the results of the Kiddicare Sleep Diaries with you in a series of infographics.

**Disclaimer** I was rewarded with a Kiddicare voucher as a thanks for taking part in this sleep study.