Noah's night

Noah has such problems with waking up and wandering the house at night. We’re hoping that a lot of his activities are just because of the excitement of moving and being in a new house and they do seem to be a little less dangerous now. Soon after we moved in he tried to turn on the gas fire, another morning we woke thinking we could smell something cooking and he had turned on all the rings on the cooker. He sometimes tries to unlock the doors to outside and often we have no idea how long he’s been awake as its not until we hear the TV blaring away that we realise he’s up.

We don’t want to lock him in his room, so have tried to bobby trap the doorway putting Isaac’s pushchair with its brakes on across the door with some toy blocks on it that should clatter to the floor if he moves it.

Paul insists that he is the lightest sleeper and will wake up to this, but last night at 1.20 it was me who woke up to find Noah had crept past the pushchair and was in the process of turning on every light in the house. He went back to bed readily enough and slept until 6.30 when he called us to come and get him – a fantastic first – we tell him he must not get out of bed himself but call to us.
Meanwhile Isaac had woken with reflux and started crying. We’ve moved him into our room so he won’t wake Noah so now he keeps us awake instead. We’ve learnt that when he’s in pain like this we just have to wait it out, it doesn’t improve matters bringing him into our bed. I was too tired last night to get him out anyway. He stopped crying after about half an hour and the good news was he was then so tired he slept through the alarm and Noah’s arrival in our room.

Lily and J are absolute sleeping beauties. We wake them when we get up to shower around 7.00 and then have to remind them about 3 times before they emerge. When I suggest that Lily should go to bed earlier she says “That’s not why I want to stay in bed, it’s that I want to finish my dreams!”

Many minor control battles with J this morning – I know this is great progress compared to the over compliant timid little mouse she was the first 6 weeks she was with us but sometimes I could do without them. Her school shoes which she dislikes so much, had mysteriously disappeared – Paul saw them under her bed when he was looking for Lily’s glasses last night but she couldn’t find them anywhere this morning.

Good to have them all off to school and a bit of peace and quiet while Isaac watches “In the Night Garden.”