TODAY'S EVENTS AND SLEEP

Alice and I were exhausted after yesterday, so with a change of plan we had a really quiet day.

We said goodbye and thank you to S as she went on her travels. We should have gone to see H and J but instead we stayed at home, kept things simple and tried out a few more toys.

Alice went to sleep quickly at lunchtime and slept well, but this evening (despite being really tired at bedtime, yawning, eye rubbing etc) she took nearly an hour to fall asleep.

Along with her hair, sleep is something that has changed a lot since she has been home. In China and the first few months home, Alice would fall asleep within minutes of being put in her cot (with no fuss). In November things began to change, now she screams as she's lowered into the cot (begin to lift her out and she stops immediately - she has learnt the power of crying!), she fusses a lot, moves around the cot a lot and takes ages to fall asleep. I've tried swaddling her - it helps to restrict her movements and sometimes helps her to go to sleep much more quickly, other times it fails and she gets free. But I'm worried about over heating whilst swaddled and with its limited success I'm not trying it as often. I've tried giving her a dummy again, it doesn't seem to help much but it gives her a distraction - strange to see her with it, she hasn't tried it since the first days together, now she can manipulate it just as she wants, somehow when she's sucking on it she can make it make a snapping noise (it's easy to tell on the monitor when she's sucking on it!)