This morning, while Tamsin was at playschool, obviously my first priority was to catch up on the blogring! But I didn't get too bogged down, and also pureed a load of carrots and apples and froze them in icecube trays, prepared week 3 of Sound of the Week, got some ingredients into the breadmaker and set it going, and played with Isabelle a bit.

After collecting Tamsin and coming home via the supermarket for a few essentials, everything went a bit pear-shaped :-( Isabelle had fallen asleep in the car but woke up when we got home, even though she was still tired. After a short time at home, she started to get very whingey, and needed to go back to sleep. The following hour got very stressful, because her normal methods of going to sleep for a nap either by feeding or being rocked in her car seat just didn't work. I was asking Tamsin to keep quiet so that Isabelle could fall asleep, but no matter what I did, she just wouldn't sleep but was just whingeing, fussing and crying. It was taking so long, and I felt I was being so unfair to Tamsin by asking her to keep quiet, that I just left Isabelle to it, hoping she would just fall asleep, while I gave Tamsin some much-needed attention and did the Sound of the Week words and pictures with her. Isabelle's crying just escalated, though, so I tried again and fed her and rocked her again, and eventually she fell asleep. I took her carseat upstairs so that we wouldn't disturb her again, but it was only about 30-40 minutes before she woke up again, still tired. I rocked her carseat and she was just dropping off again, when Tamsin came upstairs. I just managed to shush her in time, and although it disturbed Isabelle a little, she seemed to go to sleep. 2 minutes later she was *screaming*, and the only thing I can think of is she must have been having a bad dream, because there was certainly nothing else to make her scream like that. I knew she was still tired, though, and she almost dropped off again, except that Tamsin kept disturbing us. Poor girl, I'd been asking her to keep quiet just too much, and she couldn't keep doing it, and in the end I just brought Isabelle downstairs again to wake her up fully, even though she was still overtired.

I just don't know how it's 'supposed' to be done. How do you get a baby to nap regularly and properly with an older child or children in the house? We have too many of these times when I'm just always shushing Tamsin and then she interrupts at the crucial moment and Isabelle just won't sleep. Good daytime sleep helps achieve good night-time sleep, and also an over-tired baby won't do so well in many ways, so it's important. I will not just leave her to 'cry it out' - that is not something I could do for many reasons, but how can I take the time to teach her to fall asleep well at naptime and/or bedtime when I've got Tamsin to look after too? It just seems to be an impossible juggling act. At bedtime Tamsin said "I don't love you, because you shout at me..." I don't take the 'not loving' bit to heart, but it does show that it all gets too stressful in this house too often!

After all that fiasco, the rest of the afternoon went better. Tamsin did some more StudyDog (still only at the very beginning though), and, trying to think of something else to do with her when she got bored of that, I signed up for the EducationCity trial, on which she did just a few minutes. I managed to prepare a proper healthy meal again (did some menu planning a few days ago), and then the blessed 5pm came when I put the TV on for an hour of Dora, plus dinner, followed by a bath and bed.