It's day two of a 4 night break at Center Parcs Woburn and I'm shattered. I thought holidays were supposed to be relaxing and restful, but despite the luxurious large double bed I stayed in last night I only got about 2 hours sleep. The Reason? 'The Boy' as Cotswold Dad calls him.

Cotswold Kid (CK) usually has his own room, usually has an afternoon nap from about 2 and then usually sleeps through the night when we're at home. But we're not home. Yesterday we spent the day at Woburn Safari park and then we arrived at CP Woburn at about 4pm and we tried to get CK down for a nap but he was having none of it. We were the first of our group to arrive and so he could hear the others coming in and wanted to know what was going on, to the point of him standing in his cot, opening the bedroom curtains and watching our group and other passers by (and me and CD unpacking the car). He was over excited, in a strange unfamiliar place and then he was overtired so there was no chance of him sleeping then. After a while we gave up and let him join the rest of us upstairs in the main living area's where he played for a while and more or less ran riot.

We gave him his dinner (a heinz meal) which he didn't seem interested in, and then more or less finished off a modified fajita to himself. We then decided to break out the bedtime routine: Quiet time (story reading), a nice bath - with jacuzzi jets - a bottle and then bed. It worked and he went straight to sleep.

Now you may be wondering what I'm moaning about if CK went straight to sleep, problem was that when we went to bed at 11pm, we woke him up (epic fail!). I tried every device known to man to get that child back to sleep. I tried Ewan the dream sheep (successful approx 85% of the time), I sang to the kid, I rocked, I cuddled, I swayed, I rubbed his back - this works but destroys your arm after a while. Finally at around 2am I moved the cot right against my side of the bed, turned myself upside down to lie on my left side and then put my arm through the cot bars and rubbed his back, stroked his arm. It did the trick - the kid was finally asleep and it would have been great if he had remained so - but he didn't.

At 4am, I woke up to him crying, the room was really light - CP don't do black out curtains and he wanted to get up. We tried to mollify him for an hour or so but eventually after letting him in our bed we gave up at 6am and CD took him upstairs for cartoons, breakfast and a drink.

So where are we now? Well we took him swimming at the tropical paradise from 10-12 (he was exhausted by then) but then instead of feeding him and letting him sleep I took him to toddler sensory play with a group of 10 other sleep deprived parents and sat in a dark room singing songs and playing with toys. He was reluctant to play at first, but him being him, by the time we were ready to leave he'd settled in and was starting to enjoy himself. - After dragging him away through a crowd of kids crying out 'Rupert' - the teddy bears picnic activity apparently we came back to our lodge filled him with a cheese sandwich, squash and pom bears and sent him off to bed.

Hopefully we've hit the reset button on him now and he'll be ok (and we will get some sleep tonight) otherwise I shall be chucking him in the creche for the day tomorrow so I can catch up on my sleep.

Just a quick post today - J slept through for the first time last night!

We put him down at 9pm last night and after some initial tears he slept through till 7.30 this morning.

I do think its because of the bedtime routine we put in place for him. We do the 'bath, bottle, bed' routine and have been doing this for a week now ever, since he moved from his moses basket into his cot in his own room (we didn't have space for a cot in our room).

Our routine is as follows although times are approximate:
8.15 Bath with daddy (unless daddy is working)
8.25 Into mummy and daddy's room to be dried, dressed and cuddled
8.40 Into J's room - lights are dimmed, ewan the dream sheep is turned on (lullaby mode) and he is given his bottle - I also keep conversation with him minimal and quiet so as not to overstimulate him.
8.55 Goodnight kiss and then bedtime - Put J into cot, change ewan onto running water mode and turn cot mobile onto night light mode only - this is the fisherprice rainforest mobile so it also plays rainforest noises which he is content with. I also offer him a dummy but he doesn't tend to take it. I then turn off his bedroom light and step out shutting the bedroom door behind me.

Sometimes he will start crying once I've gone. I leave him a few minutes (no more than 5) to see if he will self settle and if not I pop in again, Sssh him, offer the dummy, say goodnight and step out again - even if he is crying.

He usually settles after this giving us the rest of the night to ourselves and I have to say its been working well since we started this! (touch wood). If he then wakes during the night crying for a feed, I put the lights on dimly change if necessary, feed him with Ewan's lullaby mode on and keep conversation minimal. Once finished I then put him down again with Ewan's running water mode and the night light, offer the dummy then leave.

It was nice not to have to get up but it messes with your body clock when you are used to waking up in the night to feed your baby and then don't need to. Last night I woke up at 2am and I could hear J fussing so I used the bathroom and went to check on him - he was half asleep and still fussing so I went back to bed, fully expecting to be woken up by full crying within the next 20mins or so for a feed. I was wide awake and lay there waiting but he settled himself and went back to sleep and I fell asleep too. Not sure if last night was a one off but I guess I'll find out shortly as we are currently midway through the bedtime routine.

Sleep tight!