I never thought I’d have to worry about school holidays before my first child turned 5 and actually started school. As it turns out, activities that Matthew and I attend during the week are cancelled affected by the school holidays which means that we just need to hang out at home for more time. While it isn’t really a big deal now, at some point in the future it could possibly cause some confusion on Matthews behalf when I have to explain it to him. Still got a while before that though.

Matthews started to become an expert on pulling himself up onto things. A couple of weeks back he moved from being able to reach the lower shelf of the tv cabinet to being able to read the higher shelf. From there it went so quickly that now he crawls over to the couches, puts his hands up to raise onto his knees, uses his mouth to stabilise himself and he’s up on his feet. He is also able now remove one hand to bang things and make noises. A very clever little cookie indeed, it feels like he’s learning one new trick per day.

We have also started a new method of sleeping with Matthew. He has started getting to the age where he’s becoming very cheeky, probably not on purpose, but about 50% of the time he goes to sleep during the day he wakes up the moment he goes into his cot and *bang* it’s playtime again for him. So I’ve decided it’s time for self settling. I am aware that I could let him cry for 3-4 days and we’d probably have it sorted, but I don’t really want to go through those days so I’m going for a gentler but longer method. I’ve started with Matthew is no longer allowed to fall asleep while eating. I’ve still been giving him feeds before he sleeps, but once those eyes get heavy he comes off even though he disapproves, and then gets cuddled to sleep. The first time was hard, he really protested for a good 30-40 minutes. But I knew the cry was a tired one and he wasn’t abandoned, so I just kept with the cuddling and he eventually fell asleep. The next time was a lot shorter maybe 5-10 minutes, and now I’ve got it down to a short feed and a minute protesting. Other people have also managed to get him to sleep with just a cuddle and only a few minutes of fussing, so I’m feeling successful so far. Next step is to get him from a person to the cot. I think that will be a fun one.

Standing Up: