Baby's first year- Suddenly

Baby Boo is already three months old. I feel like we arrived here rather suddenly. Boo has barely been out of my arms for 12 weeks. All her day sleeps are taken on me and we co-sleep, so at night she is cuddled up with me too. Blogging has been on the back burner as it is difficult to type one handed!
Little Boo is just now starting to sleep on her daddy, she is getting bigger and she has more space on him. Soon her day sleeps will have to be taken in bed but for now I love being able to just cuddle her.

Oh so tired!

Being tired is an epidemic amongst mums, in fact, it is probably an epidemic amongst the population in general! Adding motherhood to your list of hobbies really does seem to make being tired inevitable.
I think I have discovered half of the problem, aside from a general lack of sleep and the ability to constantly ignore our own needs of course!
I have been monitoring my inner thoughts after reading Buddhism for Mothers of School Children (see this post for details) and I have noticed that I tell myself dozens of times a day that I am tired. We all know just how quickly we talk ourselves into a negative state, it doesn't take much at all. So here I am going about my daily life with the thought of "I am so tired" swirling around my head over and over again, so of course I am exhausted, why wouldn't I be if all I do is tell myself I am?
The other issue is when some asks how I am, "tired" is often the answer I give them, so again my brain is telling my body how tired I am.
Now I am not expecting to instead be telling myself that I have the energy of a three year old and that I feel amazing and bring on a marathon! What I am expecting is that before I automatically tell myself I am tired, I will stop and actually think about how my body is feeling, often it is not tired. Often my body feels just fine and with that thought I can move on with what I am trying to achieve.  I am trying to make it a habit to actually observe how I am feeling before making a blanket statement. It doesn't mean that I am not tired, by 3pm I feel like I could sleep for a week, but for most of the morning I feel really good, and that means I wind up getting more done, it is a revelation!
Try it, you might like it!

To sleep beyond dawn!

Any parent of a toddler knows that as soon as the sun dares to peek into the world their little one will be peeking out from under the doona! There are several items on the market to help combat this, black out binds, door locks, sleeping pills (just joking!) I have tried to get my little ones to understand that mummy and daddy need to sleep and that they should stay in bed till 7am even if it is just reading a book. The problem with this is that they get up to run into the kitchen to check the clock and announce that it is 7am every five minutes in VERY loud voices, so it doesn't really work for us.
Today while browsing the net I came across the GroClock Day/Night Clock that helps little ones to understand the difference between sleep time and get up time. It is not a traditional clock as such (although it can be set to show the time) but uses a cute image to let kids know when to get up.

Setting this very cute little clock could easily become a part of your child's bedtime routine complete with a pile of books on the bedside table. It's worth a try I say, anything for a little extra sleep.