Jacobs Routine.

Can you tell we are stuck at home?
Jacob is currently sleeping like a trooper, catching up on the last weeks worth of lost sleep I think! He has been asleep nearly four hours and I've actually found myself bored. This never happens. This post obviously doesn't apply to today/this week or even when he's poorly at all but I always love hearing about other babies and toddlers routines and have found it so helpful having so many friends who've all had little ones around the same time as we had Jacob. Every child is obviously different but this is Jacobs normal day to day routine.

 

6.30-7.30am is wake up time in our house. If we are really lucky, Jacob will sometimes sleep until nearly 8. If its closer to 7.30, I'll bring Jacob into our room and let him wake Rich up for work, otherwise its down stairs for some Disney Junior or CBeebies.

8am Jacob normally wakes up pretty hungry so I get breakfast ready quite quickly. He normally has cheerios and some kind of fruit, normally blueberries or a banana, and has milk to drink.

9/9.30am We get ready for the day normally and I try to get Jacob to drink some fresh orange to keeps his bowels on the go! (Sorry if TMI!)

10am If we are doing anything before lunch such as a bit of shopping, this is normally the time we will do this as its just before his nap. Otherwise Jacob will normally potter around and entertain himself while I do a few things around the house (which I'll admit has been rare since becoming pregnant, although the last two weeks I've gotten a bit more motivated!) Jacob will normally have a little snack around now too, just maybe a rusk which he still loves or some of the Heinz Biscotti.

11.30am This is usually nap time. Since Jacob dropped to one nap, we've found that going around this time normally works best as he has quite unsettled nights a lot so can be quite flaked by this time. He normally naps for 1 and a half to 2 hours. Recently, I've been using this time to get a few things done if I've been lazy or had a clingy monster in the morning, and sometimes have a sneaky little snooze myself although since the morning (all day) sickness stopped, I've not been so desperate for it as usual so will just normally sit and revel in the quiet.

1-1.30pm Lunchtime! Sometimes Jacob can wake up absolutely ravenous and screams the place down so recently I've started to try and have his lunch ready.  He'll normally have a sandwich of some kind, bagel or pasta. Crisps or those mini organix rice cakes or their carrot puffs, although I'm horrible and don't let him have "real" crisps everyday. If we've gotten a food shop in too (which we are terrible at, daily trips to tesco in this house!) Jacob will normally have cucumber and cherry tomatoes too and always some kind of fruit. And he usually finishes off with a yogurt.

2.30pm This is normally when I try to do some sort of activity with Jacob, normally a walk or wrapping up and playing in the garden. Although the weather is making this more difficult of late so I stocked up on some crafty bits. He's gotten into painting and stuff and if he wakes up in a good mood, I'm planning on making Christmas cards this afternoon. But we will see!!

5.30pm Dinnertime. We do try to all eat together as a family, obviously this isn't always possible but try we do! Jacob normally eats what we eat but on the days when we are having a later dinner or something not very Jakey friendly, the Annabelle Karmel or the Little Dish toddler meals are nice and quick and he always eats every last bite. I normally have left overs in the freezer but always forget about them and they end up getting chucked in the bin. Last week I threw away six separate dinners that I'd frozen. Jacob will normally have a yoghurt or something naughty like a little cake or chocolate biscuit for pudding. He drinks water or really weak squash throughout the day. Rich banned fruit shoots as he read an article about them having some ingredient in them thats proven to make kids naughty. I'm pretty sure that's the sugar!

6.30pm Bath time, although Jacob normally only has a bath every other day as his skin is so sensitive and dries out really easily! We normally do the bedtime routine together as Rich wouldn't have seen Jacob much if its a weekday and to be honest, he's such a terror it takes two of us to chase him round and get him into his PJ's!

7pm Bedtime. Jacob picks about 700 books to read and then we read the same one about four times before he goes into his cot. He usually settles off quite well. He does still wake up a fair few times a night, normally crying because he can't find his dummy. But usually stays in his cot until the morning and we start the whole routine again!

Obviously this isn't always the case, if we have a play date or Jo Jingles, it normally gets wiggled around a bit. But I am known as a bit of a routine drill sergeant to my family when it comes to Jacob. It will probably bite me in the backside in time to come!

A full nights sleep...

Before I even started writing this, I thought "Char, you're jinxing it, you're jinxing it, don't do it!!!" But I think we may have turned a corner with sleep. Jacob hasn't been in our bed for around two weeks now. And He's started to sleep to a more normal time. He woke up at 8.15 on Sunday morning. It was amazing. He did have a wobble at around 5.30, I'm not 100% on the time but it was dark so there was no way we were getting up. Does he not know that Sunday is a day of rest?! I left him to have a little moan, and then it went silent. Next thing I know, it was 8.15. Rich sleeps through absolutely anything (so he says, I bet all your baby daddy's do the same too don't they? Must be a magical gene men are blessed with) so when I decided enough was enough with him coming into our room in the night, I knew the battle was for me to fight alone. We've always tried to use controlled crying as is the the only thing that's ever really worked for us. Jacob has been so much happier too, and me! He wakes up and sits talking and laughing to himself and his toys, as opposed to waking up crying. And He's down to the one big nap a day. This varies from before lunch around 11.30 or he will go after lunch around one. It all depends on what time he was awake. Which recently hasn't been earlier than 6.30. I'm jinxing it again aren't I...

We have Jacobs check up at the Royal London Hospital tomorrow, it was pushed back a week as they had an emergency last week. Its happened a few times and every time I panic like crazy. A week will never make too much difference in tumour growth, but because he's gone so long without treatment, it is very nerve wracking. He's on the afternoon list too which is even more stressful than the morning. It tends to always run a bit later and sometimes Jacob won't go down to theatre until 4. And when he hasn't eaten since 7.30 that morning, he is not a happy boy. And I'm pretty sure he's going through a bit of a growth spurt at the moment too as he doesn't stop eating and all of his trousers seem to have turned into ankle biters. He's finally making his way into 9-12 month clothing, so after a year of wearing 3-6 and 6-9, He's finally mixing it up a bit! It does however mean he needs so many new clothes, he managed to build up an entire years worth of wardrobe in 3-6 month clothing. So summer or winter, if you need some 3-6 months boys clothes, give me a shout!!!

Due to the size change, I went through all of Jacobs clothes to sort out what I want to keep and what I'll probably donate. I thought about doing a boot sale and selling it on but its just all too much hassle. I managed to part with about a quarter of the items. And even that was a ridiculous amount. How do you get rid of it all?! I think I'm going to need to get about 200 of those memory quilts made. My mum got Jacob a bear made with 5 of his first sleep suits which was lovely. I'm sure I'll get realistic and part with them one day.

We avoided Jo Jingles this week, purely because Jacob always has a habit of picking up a cold or some sort of snotty disease right before hospital, and as he was already delayed, I didn't want to risk him catching anything. Instead, we spent the morning grabbing some shopping and then Sophie and Teddy came over for lunch.
We changed Jacobs routine a little bit last night, as he normally gets changed and ready for bed upstairs, then goes to bed after a story. We tried changing him into his pyjamas a bit earlier last night and letting him stay downstairs for a bit. It can end up a bit chaotic when he gets changed right before bed and can make him over excited and then he throws a bit of a wobbly when he's put into his cot. He went to bed really well, and alot calmer than usual. I still had to read the same book four times though. That's his new thing. The same book over and over again. He would let me read it sixty times if he could.

A bit of before bed relaxation.

I finally managed to get some wellies in Jacobs size yesterday. Everywhere is sold out of little size 4's! But they have posed a problem, he wants to wear them ALL THE TIME. And be outside ALL THE TIME. And it isn't very warm at the moment! We've just spent an hour in the garden. I swear kids don't get cold. 

I'll let you know how we get on tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

4am is the new 7am.

Oh my gosh, I don't think I've been this tired since Jacob was first born. We've recently decided that afternoon naps are no longer necessary (again) and that its completely normal to get up for the day at 4am. He's just gone down for a nap and it's only 8.30, which is going to ruin his whole day now. Yes, I am a routine drill Sargent. Jacob has always had the same sort of routine so if anything changes, it just messes up his whole day. So the 8.30am nap means he will be an absolute grotbag by around 1pm. And if he skips his afternoon nap again, he will be a total sleep deprived monster by bedtime and then we can do it all over again. We have been very lucky with Jacob going down to bed. From around six weeks old, he had a bath, bottle then bed. At first, he went in his Moses basket in our room and we'd leave him to go off on his own, although for the first few nights, I would sit outside our room or peer round the door until he went to sleep. Then he went into his own room at 3 and a half months as he filled his Moses basket and we wanted him to be used to it before his chemo started as we didn't want an upheaval when he would be feeling rubbish anyway. The times obviously changed as he got older and settled more into a routine with feeding and daily naps and bedtime slowly dropped from 10pm to 7pm which it is now. Although last night he went to bed at 6pm as he was so tired. I wish babies understood when you explained to them that if they slept, they wouldn't feel so pooped. Jacob just looks at me like I'm mad when he's throwing a wobbly and I'm stood there going "well Jacob, if you'd have slept or gotten up at a normal time this would be happening right now would it." I just get another scream as a response.
So right now, with the first bit of quiet I've had since 4.45am, I am torn between having a nap, washing my hair or having a cup of tea (as I couldn't drink the first one I made due to my insane little monster refusing to allow me to sit still.)

...So, I opted for all three, and managed to squeeze them all in! Well I didn't really have a nap, just laid on the bed revelling in the silence. And I don't think I've ever enjoyed a cup of tea more in my life. Jacob slept for around two hours, and woke up in a reasonably good mood! We've started going for a walk after his morning nap, just to kill some time really because he normally is quite miserable between his morning nap and lunch. Plus it builds up his appetite a bit! We've had some trouble with him eating since we've been letting him sit at his little table and chairs to eat, he gets up and looses interest quite quickly. He still eats, but just takes a lot longer and then he gets bored. So I think we may go back to the booster seat at the table.
My dad and step mum came over with my little sister this afternoon, and for the first time, I saw Jacob being a bit of a monkey with sharing his toys. My little sister is nearly 3 so she's still learning about sharing too. But Jacob was trying to take everything Katie picked up. And he was not happy when I took it back to Katie. This age is definitely living up to its reputation as "the hard stage." My happy, independent boy has become a miserable clingbot. He woke up from his afternoon nap extremely unhappy and sat on my lap eating his rice cakes through groans and moans. Rich played some ball with him when he got home from work so I could cook dinner, which probably would have proved a mission with Jacob hanging off my leg! I feel like I constantly repeat myself, but I really hope he sleeps better tonight!

We went to Wild & Wacky as usual on Monday and to Jo Jingles. Jacob really enjoyed himself. He climbed around all of the soft play and went up to the slide all by himself which he never normally does. And he stood up and participated in most of Jo Jingles. He was hilarious, just wandering around like he owned the place. 

 The troublesome twosome...

 "Participate" also means "eat the instruments."

 Walking.

 We went to the park on Tuesday to try and burn some energy so Jacob had an afternoon nap. It failed.

 Jacob is obsessed with this tree stump in the woods behind our house. 

Cruising in Jacob's car.

I am arranging a fundraiser for The Childhood Eye Cancer Trust as I couldn't make the Carrots Night walk this year, which we did last year and raised an unbelievable £7000! In all honesty, I just totally forgot to sign up this year which is a bummer because I really wanted to do it as it was quite good fun and I met some amazing people last year. So, to ease my guilt for being useless and forgetting, I have decided to throw a children's Halloween Disco. Originally, I was going to just have a Halloween party at home for my friends and their children, but my friend suggested we turn it into a fundraiser. So since last week, I have been planning that! It's quite stressful but people have been so generous with raffle prizes and donations. Its so lovely to know there are people out there who want to help. I'm sure it will be worth all the stress and worry on the day! And I cannot wait to dress Jacob up in some crazy costume!

Monday movie day.

Jacob slept reasonably well last night, I tried the rousing him a few hours after he went to sleep as my friend Kayleigh said it can sometimes do the trick. So I tried at around 11pm, but there was no waking the little monster! He stirred a little bit but thought I'd just leave it at that as to be honest, I was petrified of him waking up and doing his 3am screaming session there and then. He woke up quite a few times after around 3.30am, but none of the screaming like usual. He woke up for the day around 6.30 which is earlier than when he's in our bed, but I'll take it if he is in his bed! We battled the naps in full force today, Jacob started to get grumpy at around 10am as usual, but we really wanted him to just hang it out until after lunch because as he is only having one nap, I don't want it to be too early! We decided to go for a rainy walk with the dog as he has never fallen asleep in his new stroller so I thought that and being outside would keep him entertained until lunch. How wrong was I... He fell asleep in his stroller. At 11.45! All I needed was another 45 minutes so he'd eaten lunch. Typical! I tried to wake him up but he wasn't having it so moved him into his cot. He slept until 1.30pm which actually worked out quite well because it was still kind of lunchtime, although he woke up so so grumpy where he was starving! We normally have lunch around 12-12.30 and he didn't have a morning snack so he must have been ravenous! 

A bit of a rubbish picture, but couldn't resist a little selfie on our walk. 

Nap battle fail.

As the bank holiday was such a wash out, as always in England, we had a total movie day. After a supermarket trip in which we let Jacob walk around for the first time, he went straight for the balls down the toy aisle, we spent the afternoon watching The Little Mermaid, Beauty & The Beast, Casper and The Lion King. And then before bed, we watched the vlog I follow on YouTube called The SacconeJolys. I absolutely love it, it's just a little daily vlog of an Irish family and their lives. They kind of gave me the idea to start this too. Check them out here if your a bit of a reality fiend. 

Jacob wore real skinny jeans today for the first time! He looks so grown up. He's wearing all Next today. Their clothes are definitely my favourite for Jacob. 

Jacobs gone to bed quite well at 7pm, so fingers crossed for a good night! Hope you've all had a great weekend, although I think most people have spent it getting soaked in icy water! 

More tantrums & Ice bucket challenges.

It's been a tiring couple of nights since Friday. We are still battling the transition from two to one nap and it's so hard! On Friday night, Jacob spent an hour screaming the house down at 2am before I gave in and brought him into our bed. He slept til 8.15 which was lovely, but it would have been much nicer if he was in his own bed! It was really nice for us all to wake up together and just relax in bed for a while, we don't normally get to do it because it's either too early so I come downstairs with Jacob, or we have somewhere to be. If it's a morning where we haven't got to be somewhere, I will normally bring Jacob into our room from his and we will watch tv and all have our cup of tea in bed, but it is so rare that this happens! Because Jacob woke up at 8.15, I thought he would skip his morning nap and have just the one after lunch, but bang on 10am, he wanted his morning nap. He slept for about half an hour, which seemed to be enough for the rest of the day, because despite extreme tantrums and crying and hanging off of me everywhere I went, the little boy did not want to sleep! We tried to put him down in his cot a few times after seeing the "tired" signs. This is normally the crankiness and he gets very whingey, and starts tugging at his ears and poking his artificial eye (which is just lovely.) We needed to pop out, and low and behold, Jacob fell asleep in the car at 5pm. I try really hard not to let him sleep past 4pm otherwise he is an absolute nightmare to get to bed because he's like a supercharged Duracell bunny if he sleeps past then. He had about 20 minutes in the car so was not a happy bunny when we woke him up for dinner. He's started to go to bed at 7pm too as his daytime sleeping has gone up the wall, and last night he just wasn't having any of it. He absolutely screamed the house down for an hour, it was so hard not to go up and sit with him, but we've done controlled crying with him before and it does work for us. So every ten minutes or so, I was going in, laying him back down and leaving again. My dad was visiting and after about five attempts he was like "it's a tantrum! He knows you'll go up, so just leave him!" I really hate it because he does get himself into such a state. I left it 15 minutes, and he went quiet, then five minutes later he was asleep. A crazy part of me thought that he'd sleep through as he'd wiped himself out throught his tantrum. But nope, 3am this morning and he was off again. I refused to give in this time as it would have been the 5th night this week he came into our bed. After 45 minutes of screaming and launching dummies across the hallway, I just stood next to his cot and he fell asleep. Probably another bad habit to get into, but one step at a time! He slept through until 7.15, so I can cope with that for today. My friend said it could be night terrors, as she had the same troubles with her little girl around this age. She said if you rouse them slightly around two hours after they go to sleep, it disturbs the sleep and therefore disturbs the pattern. So we are going to try that tonight! 

Jacob hasn't stopped toddling around now and everyone said how much harder it becomes once they're walking. But to be honest, I haven't found it much different, he is such a bulldozer anyway and climbs absolutely everything so I've had to have eyes in the back of my head for about 8 months now! The trouble now is that he actually wants to walk EVERYWHERE. In the supermarket, to the car, and if the front door opens, he's up on his feet and running for it! The neighbours must think I'm awful to live with because when I pick him up and close the door, the screams are like somebody is being murdered. We at currently battling the word "no." Jacob thinks it's the funniest word in the world because when I point and say "noooooo" in that voice that every parent seems to say it in, he just laughs at me. And then I laugh because I can't get over how cheeky he is. So it's going to be a tough one I think. Any tips!?

My little climber.

I could watch these two playing together for hours.

I did the "ALS Ice Bucket Challenge" tonight after being nominated by my sister. I think these things are such a brilliant idea, as long as people actually donate. I hated the "no make-up selfie" campaign to begin with as a lot of people were just using it as an excuse to post a picture and get likes, and not actually donate. After Cancer Research got onto it and people started donating, it was brilliant. So with the ALS challenge, I am all for it if people are donating, although watching people soak themselves with ice cold water is brilliant in itself. I did two buckets as I wanted to donate to CHECT too. They are such an amazing charity and I know it sounds silly, but I felt like I was cheating on them! Haha. Below is the video of me getting a soaking! It was SO cold. 

Good luck to anyone who gets nominated, and please make sure you donate! 

Playing out.

Since Jacob was a few weeks old, Rich sometimes takes him out on a Saturday morning to meet his friends for breakfast. It's lovely for them to do that together and it also gives me time to get ready and wash my hair (which doesn't happen very often!!!). Jacob is petrified of the hairdryer so I have to either do it when Rich is at home to distract him or if they go out. Rich's friends from work are doing the challenge of a lifetime and canoeing from Fort William to Inverness to raise money for The Childhood Eye Cancer Trust on behalf of Jacob. The charity have done so so much for us as a family. They are really amazing and is wonderful that we have friends that recognise this too and want to give back. So Rich was meeting them on Saturday to see them off as they were leaving on Sunday. Rich and Jacob had a daddy and son day most of Saturday as I was a little worse for wear after meeting friends for drinks on Friday night. (By worse for wear, I mean totally incapacitated. It's shameful.) I felt so awful as I'd hardly seen Jacob all day but it was so lovely for him and Rich to spend the day together without me and have some quality time for just the two of them. I made a point of doing his bedtime routine which I look forward to and we obviously read Dear Zoo again. 

Sunday I felt much better, still a bit delicate but nowhere near as awful as Saturday! It was back to mummy mode. We were up at 6.30 which is good for Jacob! Better than the 5am starts we've been having some mornings. We were going to Aaron and Lou's for dinner which I was really looking forward to as we don't really get out for dinner very much. With Jacobs routine it can be quite difficult sometimes. I've gotten him into such a strict routine from when he was tiny that if we deviate from it at all, all hell breaks loose. It's my own fault but you learn! Jacob absolutely loved Lou's garden, it was huge so he had loads of room to roam around.

Jacob started to take lots more steps again yesterday! He seemed to have just given up, but my best friend Adele bought him a pair of Vans trainers for his birthday which have only just started to fit and they seem to really help with his walking, plus he looks so cute in them. 

LOST!

Such a poser. 

He's getting so grown up, it breaks my heart.

Dinner time. He LOVES corn!

Mondays is normally Jo Jingles day but it's finished for the summer holidays. So today we decided to go to Ashlyns Farm Park in North Weald which is just down the road from where we live. Laura and Jonah came along too. It is so lovely there. They have a little farm shop where they sell all fresh produce and jams and stuff. I was good and didn't buy anything, mainly because I always end up throwing fridge fulls of food away because I forget what I've bought and then it goes out of date. They have a little farm trail that you go round, with loads of little animals and Jacob is absolutely obsessed with animals. And then parks and soft play areas for the kids. We even managed to get a few photos of Jonah and Jacob together which is difficult because they are both so go go go all the time. We went for lunch afterwards, and Jacob doesn't normally eat well when we are out, another routine thing I think! But he ate all his lunch today and then started on Jonah's! We've got a busy week this week so today was the only day that we could really go out and do anything fun for Jacob. And it was a really nice day. 

Making friends.

Best pals. 

Picking up chicks at a bar...

If you would like to sponsor our friends for their canoe challenge, you can at justgiving.com/jacobscanoers. Obviously I don't expect you to but if you have a spare few pounds then feel free. CHECT are a truly amazing charity that have done so much for us and other families like us. Thankyou :)