New Mummy Blog: Surviving The Night Feeds (Barely)

It's 3am and it feels like there's not another soul in the world, apart from me, my baby and my snoring husband. I never used to see this time of night sober. I kind of wish I wasn't sober now.

I know it won't last forever and one day I'll probably look back fondly on this time, remembering how much my baby needed me.

But in the cold light of now, in the middle of the night, that doesn't count for much. My baby does not sleep, has not slept for more than a couple of hours on the trot for months now. I long for an unbroken night's sleep. I dream of six hours. Or five. Four would do.

It's not for lack of trying. I thought we'd done everything right; we taught him to self soothe, took care not to introduce any sleep crutches, made sure he learnt this difference between night and day, didn't ever drive round the block to send him off.

But it doesn't matter. He just will not sleep.

He's very bright, says the health visitor. Babies as alert as this simply don't need much sleep. That's all very nice to hear but right now I can't be certain I wouldn't trade a bit of that brightness for some decent shut eye.

He doesn't need this many feeds, say my disapproving relatives. Try telling him that when he's shouting the house down every night.

Babies struggle to sleep through the night until they weigh at least 16lb, says my book. Henry's small, just ninth percentile on the weight chart. By that reckoning we have three months left until he reaches this magical weight. This surely cannot be. And so I resign myself to this thankless and unforgiven cycle, dictated to by a ravenous and extremely loud baby lying inches from my head.

My bedtime routine begins with me wondering why I can get into bed with stealth of a ninja while my husband makes as much noise as possible. He drops his belt on floor, opens and closes drawers, decides now is the time to kill the spider that has been living on the ceiling, clears his throat one too many times.

If by some small miracle the baby is still asleep when we get into bed, I then face the dilemma of the dream feed. Do I really want to risk picking him up out of his cot when, for once, he is sleeping so peacefully?

If I don't do it, I can guarantee he'll wake up the moment I settle into a deep sleep, mercilessly wrenching me awake. So I do it, silently applauding my success at feeding while barely waking him.

But then, 25 minutes later, just as I'm entering that deep sleep, he wakes anyway.

My disbelief as his cry crashes into my dreams is absolute. He has gone from silent to sobbing in an instant, nothing in between. How is that even possible? It's as if he can't believe the indignity of being in his cot. His beautiful, luxurious, comfortable cot, perfectly designed for a full night's sleep.

And he can't possibly be hungry, can he?

Apparently yes, he can.

At first I lie there, waiting for the self-soothe training to kick in. I wait some more. All that happens is that he becomes more and more awake.

I try settling him. He cries harder. I pick him up. Harder still. I rock him and shush him, all the while worrying he'll wake his sister in the next room, dumbfounded he hasn't woken my husband sleeping a foot away.

Henry gets angrier and angrier and it becomes increasingly clear only one thing will do. I give in and feed him again. He gulps and gulps as if he's been starved for hours. In fact it's only been 50 minutes since his last feed.

Eventually his rhythm slows. His eyes are closed. I put him back down, for once forgetting all the rules about doing so while he's still awake. Instead I'm praying his eyes stay shut. I creep back into bed and lie as still as possible, cursing my husband for choosing that moment to cough/roll over/snore/breathe too heavily.

Eventually I relax and fall asleep, hoping for a miracle and a four-hour stint of sleep. Instead I get two, if I'm lucky. It's not uncommon for me to see some part of every hour between midnight and 7am. With each wake up I become increasingly desperate.

The second time, I reach for Ewan the Dream Sheep, grabbing for the buttons on his legs that play various soothing sounds - white noise, heartbeats, music, all the things that, they promise, babies love to hear and will send them on their merry way to the land of nod. I used to sleep with it next to my bump, thinking I was getting some early sleep training in before the baby was even born. What a fool.

By the third wake up, I'm doing a weird half whisper, half shout. "Oh come ON Henry, you must be joking". Unlikely, seeing as his sense of humour is yet to develop beyond blowing raspberries on his tummy and pretending to eat his toes.

The fourth night feed I manage to do without really waking; this time I'm dream feeding. This would almost be a good development, except I wake myself up 15 minutes later, sitting bolt upright in a panic as I realise I brought the baby into the bed and now he's not in my arms. I scrabble around, a frantic wrestle with the duvet, before I peer through the darkness and realise I'd put him back in his cot.

The clock tells me I've now got around 35 minutes until the toddler wakes up. Excellent. It'll probably be the longest sleep I've had all night.

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