Night Shift

A mother's job is 24/7.

As Mr MG prepares to go to bed, MG prepares herself for the night shift but before the night shift begins must get the kids to bed first.

Going to bed

Baby has a viral infection and is feeling miserable. That means he needs lots of tender loving care. He has trouble falling asleep because he feels uncomfortable. Normally a simple breastfeed while telling toddler her bedtime stories would do the job and then he would sleep like a.... well, like a baby.

But due to the fever and his slightly gassy stomach, he is screaming in discomfort, his tiny fingers gripping my arm, little fingernails digging into my flesh, his face all red and he is arching his little body. So no choice, have to walk him up and down to distract him and help him to sleep. Baby seldom gets this luxury of being walked up and down but since he is not feeling well.....

Toddler is jealous to see the attention baby is getting. To avoid this, we go and fetch her teddy bear so she could walk up and down with the bear as well (instead of bugging me to carry her) and so we both walked up and down the room. It took 3 rounds of pacing the floor before baby slept and toddler stopped feeling jealous and went to sleep too. Not 3 rounds round the room mind you. (Defination of 1 round = walk up and down, up and down then put baby down "Waaaaaah!" more nail digging, back arching, face turning red). Normally baby is very good but since he is sick thats the way he tells me he is not feeling well since he can't talk yet.

Night Shift Begins

Toddler woke up crying non-stop. Uh Oh! Usually that means a nightmare or coming down with a virus. (I thought baby would be the first one to wake up. ) It took some time to calm her down and in the meantime baby woke up. Took him out to check his diaper. Nothing there.

A moment later.... phhuuut! phhuut! Uh Oh! Baby needs a diaper change now. The doc did say to watch out for loose stools so here it comes. After the change, toddler goes back to sleep and baby had to be walked up and down again.

Much later.... Thud! Waaaaaah! (Toddler fell off the bed) Luckily we haven't thrown away that cheap mattress at the end of the bed to cushion any fall. Calms toddler down but baby woke up again. Luckily this time he went back to sleep after a breastfeed.

Much..much..later... Waaaaahhh! This time its baby who needs comforting again. Walk up and down, up and down. Its early morning now but normally baby sleeps in late so have to get him back to sleep.

Much..much...much...later... Mummy! (Toddler wakes up.) Waaaaahhhh! (Baby wakes up.)

Night shift over liao. Day shift about to start.

Usually day shift is more heavy duty except for the lack of sleep at night. Normally its not so bad though. Its quite easy to get them to bed and toddler usually sleeps through the night; but when one is sick... thats what happens lah.

Note: After the Day shift over, night shift started again, with a near repeat of the earlier night except for the part where toddler fell off the bed. MG got panda eyes adi.