oh ros sorry you're feeling down. They're all being little blighters at the moment and having two to deal with must be making it even harder. I'm sure that the business about gardening is just the change of having someone new with him.
wg mate hope you got back to sleep.
zj I think you're right about the milk thing - much the same for us!
DD went to sleep at about 8. We went up at 11, she was wriggling about but didn't actually wake. Wanted a feed at 1 which I gave lying down then shuffled her back to the cot. Woke again at 3 making hungry noises but too wriggly to feed lying down so I sat up with her and then she needed changing. After this she decided the was completely and utterly awake - wriggling, chattering, squealing excitedly even when the light was off. DH slept through all this so come 4.30 when I just couldn't take it any more and had no idea when/if she'd go back to sleep, I stropped off to the sofa (spare bed still covered in music ) telling him to bring her down if she got hungry again. Next thing I know it's 7 and he's getting up. Tells me that she quieted down and went to sleep the moment I left the room . Went up to the bedroom, she started wriggling and farting but not actually sounding distressed. Only got hungry at 8am .
Now evidently she can sleep through from 3 until 8 without needing a feed, so why doesn't this happen more often? She wriggles and makes noises a lot which wake me up but that DH can sleep through so she may have done this but he didn't notice. My problem is when she's next to me making noises, I wake up and then the only way to get us back to sleep is to feed her. Which of course it's probably not, if I leave her she might eventually get back on her own. But if she doesn't, it's a long old night lying listening to her! Perhaps if she was on DH's side of the bed it would take a lot more to wake him, so only if she was genuinely hungry? I'm sure they can sense milk nearby (like the childcatcher - "there is milk here, I can smell it!") and so the easy option for us is to give it to them.
I was reading What Mothers Do again yesterday (would call it WMD but that probably applies more to our little nippers!) and there's a lovely passage which describes really well what this thread is like. Starts with a mother complaining about a problem she's having at a mothers' group. "The listening mothers form themselves into a kind of containing basket - I'm not sure how to explain this process. There is a moment of tension when we cannot be sure that the basket will hold and be strong enough. The mother starts crying and perhaps another mother passes her a tissue. The others murmur 'That must be so hard' or other sympathetic comments.But the overall response is a profound silence in the face of another mother's suffering.
It took me many failures to realise this silence is healing. It acts as a kind of shock-absorber. No more needs to be said. The crying mother feels less alone, and the listening mothers feel they have taken on a tiny fraction of her lot. All feel lighter and stronger, despite the pain they have shared "
That's what you all are - a containing basket for our respective problems and worries. It's sad to hear that there are some other PN groups where people criticise each other - I think we're all very easy going on each other (if not ourselves ) and it's fab. Group hug!