I have known the words Sleep Breeds Sleep to be true for sometime.  They were words told to us when we visited Ngala (WA's parent resource centre) in Mia's first month.  We had been through a 12 hour marathon of her not sleeping which ended up in us taking

Something was wrong but it was with us the parents, not our little girl.  You can imagine our embarressment when the doctor kindly told us that the only thing wrong with our precious angel was over tiredness.  We booked into Ngala the next day for some much needed training.

The day was awesome we learnt so much but more importantly we learnt that the more a baby/child sleeps the better quality sleep they receive and the less tired they become.  I also didn't realise that during sleep is when children process everything they have learned during their waking hours so in the event they don't receive proper sleep then they will struggle cementing the knowledge.

This has been proven again over the past 4 days with Mia having less and less sleep and getting more and more cranky and clingy.  I am not sure what broke the pattern of her sleep but it started over the weekend when she woke up a few times during the night.  She did look like she may be coming down with a cold last week but this never eventuated fully.  This was followed by a much smaller day time sleep.

Each night after got progressively worse with the return of her nightmares/night terrors making it more and more difficult to get her to settle.  It was like having a new born in the house getting up every 3-4 hours.

Perserverence and a return to previous settling techniques finally paid out.  Monday night we became firmer in our settling techniques and as such she only woke a couple of times and slept in for an extra half hour.  Yesterday, we (actually my mother) finally got her to have a decent afternoon sleep and last night she slept through for the first time since Friday night.  It is amazing how much better the world looks when you have had a full nights sleep.

I snuck out of the house this morning at 7am with her still sleeping soundly.