O Sleep How You Taunt Me

Piglet went to sleep at 7.15pm today.  ***KLAXON***

I am braced for a rough night when he inevitably wakes up in an hour or so, having regarded his current period of sleep as nothing but a later-than-normal nap, and sits bolt upright in bed, before launching himself at me head first and emitting a high pitched scream into my ear, headbutting me and biting my face.

This sort of physical attack is, I believe, what passes for a sign of affection with Piglet.

Either that or he actually detests me.

He is, of course, sleeping in the bed.  I would hardly be so bold as to put him in his cot.  For a start, there is no sheet on the mattress as the combined intellects of myself and my mother couldn't work out how to fit one on without the ends of the mattress curling up, and secondly, he will not sleep in a cot anyway.

An old photo, but one which I feel sums up roughly how Piglet feels about being in a cot.

I had long suspected this to be the case, but I had spent so many months gathering him up into my arms and taking him into the bed with me at the first sign of a whimper that he had barely spent any time in the cot and so I couldn't be sure.  Then, last week, when we were on holiday in Cornwall, came the acid test.

The travel cot we had ordered had been placed into what I can only assume was supposed to be the children's room in the caravan, judging by the size of the single bed in there, which was slightly narrower than the average shelf.  O the folly of these holiday caravan people who have never met Piglet and I, and who must have assumed that he has something known as a "routine," and sleeps at a time of his parents' (they must have assumed there were two, sleeping in the double bedroom) choosing, in a room which is designated for the exclusive use of a child or children plural.  O what folly (*shakes fist at the idea of a nuclear family with a routine*)

And so I bravely steeled myself for a night on the shelf (metaphorically, surely the story of my life), and laid Piglet down into the travel cot for his slumbers.

After feeding him to sleep of course (*guffaws heartily at the idea of him doing any of that "settling himself to sleep" that the parenting books are always talking about*).

It lasted about an hour.

I duly fed him to sleep again, and popped him back in the cot.

Another hour.

Now this, I told myself, was normal.  Piglet always wakes up at least every few hours and I then feed him to sleep again.  The only difference was that it would normally involve simply rolling over and proffering a boob rather than lifting him out of the cot, but still.  I even started to think that Piglet was getting the hang of this sleeping in a cot lark.  Who knows, perhaps in a few years time he'll even progress to settling himself to sleep like the parenting books say all babies should by the age of three months.

Again he went to sleep, and again he woke up an hour or so later.

Only this time, he was sitting bolt upright in the cot and surveying the room with interest.  Not a good sign.

The next two hours included the following:

Breastfeeding repeatedly in a desperate attempt to get him to go back to sleep
Leaving the room to find a fresh nappy only to wake up the entire caravan (damn you thin paper caravan walls!)
Piglet greeting the rest of the caravan's occupants with squeals and giggles
More breastfeeding

And finally:

Lying down on the very edge of the shelf with Piglet on there next to me, crammed against the thin caravan wall and intermittently banging on it, keeping my brother and his partner (in the "parents" room next door) awake.

I should probably add here that since I started writing this post I have had to put the laptop aside twice to feed Piglet back to sleep.

One day, he will learn to settle himself to sleep.  One day.

Newsflash-Mother has time to paint own toenails!

Piglet is asleep and I have just managed to snatch a few moments to afford myself the liberty of painting my toenails.

I now look, with my lurid red toenails, like a woman who never wears anything but trousers and a woolly hiking fleece, who has suddenly put on a dress for the first time in ten years, to the astonishment of all her friends and colleagues: in other words, out of place.  And clearly I should be sleeping.  I mean, last night Piglet barely slept a wink.  He just kept waking up, wailing and reaching for the boob, coming off, rolling over and then starting the whole process over again an infinite number of times, until the sun was literally coming up and I couldn't bear to look at the time, knowing that it was bound to be ten minutes before the alarm was due to go off.

The weird thing is, I'm not remotely bothered.

In the past, when circumstances conspired to make me lose large chunks of sleep, either by long flights or long nights drinking inadvisable alcohol/energy drink combinations, I was like a crazed wild animal, attacking anything and anyone who stood in the way of a nice comfy bed.  But now, even when the alarm goes off and I have to drag my barely living carcass out of bed and make breakfast, heaving the still sleeping Piglet into his Bumbo seat as he bleats in protest and remonstrates with me about my being the Worst Mother Ever by flailing his arms up and down angrily, I am strangely calm and serene, when any other mortal being-or even nearby inanimate object-who behaved this way would have me praying for their imminent violent death.  I blame breastfeeding for turning me into this weirdly placid creature.  It must be the hormones.  Either that or motherhood has turned me into Martin Luther King, but without the bravery.  I am fearful of anything and everything that might cause harm to Piglet.  Except random bits of stale toast on the carpet.  Or the mouthfuls of toilet roll he insists on eating (one has to pick one's battles, otherwise I will shortly turn into my mother, yelling "NO!" and launching herself across the room every other nanosecond to rescue Piglet from the nearest plug socket or library book).

And so it is that at the shocking time of 9.45pm I find myself still awake and wondering whether I should be putting some sleep in the Great Sleep Bank that regrettably doesn't exist (if only I had been able to stock up on sleep during pregnancy.  God knows I tried), or whether I should be making the most of these precious few moments of baby-free time to paint my fingernails as well.  Or like, change the world or something.  Or write a novel and become brilliant at making my own clothes and baking prize-winning cakes.  Or start a multi-million pound business importing cherry-blossom flavoured alcopops from Japan.  You know, all those things you think would be great to do while the baby's asleep.

Or perhaps they would be better done at 4am, when he wakes up.

Positive Sleep Associations

This is my latest scintillating read.

The wrinkled sheet underneath (yes that is on my bed) is basically a metaphor for Piglet's current sleeping patterns.  Well, who irons a sheet anyway?  I mean, who even owns an iron?

As I write, Piglet is sleeping soundly at my feet in his bouncy chair.  To look at his angelic face, anyone would assume that the last thing he has is a sleep problem, but appearances are deceiving.  For reasons unknown, today he has been sleepy all day and whinging loudly whenever awake.  I have therefore spent most of the day feeding, rocking or walking him to sleep; the latter around the industrial estate encircling Wembley Stadium in the wind and driving rain, with a nearby concrete-making works blowing bits of sand and gravel into my face at approximately the speed of a tornado whilst I clung desperately to the pram to avoid it being whipped up into the air and Piglet having an unintentional Mary Poppins moment.

To say this amount of sleep is unusual for Piglet is an understatement.  Usually he barely sleeps during the day, then spends much of the night whinging and failing to go to sleep, before finally dropping off sometime after midnight.  Dr Richard Ferber of book in picture above fame says that babies need to form positive sleep associations, so I have been bombarding Piglet with images of this lot:

None of these creatures are going to scare a young baby in any way.  And all of their antics are very relaxing and do not in any way involve such hyperactivity-inducing pastimes as singing, dancing, saying their own name over and over again in squeaky baby-language or chasing each other around a garden armed with a sponge.  My personal favourite character is this dude on the right:

What a ledge.  Would not be at all alarming if you were walking through the woods and ran into this chap.  IMAGINE IF IT STARTED CHASING YOU.  I might add that despite appearances, this picture is not a grainy CCTV shot of two people the police want to speak to regarding a series of armed attacks on innocent dog-walkers.

In a further attempt to give Piglet some positive sleep associations-and of course to get him interested in all things literary-I have also been reading him a series of bedtime stories on the theme of bedtime and night time.

Hold on, no not that one.

This one!

I know, it looks like it may not be a whole lot better.  I found this gem yesterday in the library.  It was the first book I picked up, but I had to leave quickly because there was a two year old child trying to attack Piglet.  I kid thee not.  Piglet was-unusually and only because he was in the pram and we had been walking-asleep.  As I wheeled the pram through the library to the children's section, I heard a small voice saying "baby!  Sleepy baby!"  This was followed by the owner of said voice following us-in full view of his mother who did absolutely nothing about the situation-poking Piglet with a soggy biscuit-covered hand, and then blocking the pram from the front whilst clinging onto the underside of it so that I very nearly had to actually ram the little blighter to get rid of him.  Instead, I announced in my sternest teacher voice that the baby was sleeping, thank you very much, and much as we both appreciated the help manoeuvring the pram, he did not wish to be disturbed.  I then made a very quick exit and hence Piglet is now stuck with Good Night Wisconsin as his bedtime story.  Interestingly, the back cover says that there are other, similar books in the series, not just other states of America, but other countries, so I'm not sure why Wembley Library only seems to stock the one about Wisconsin, which is somewhere that I doubt many of the locals have been, not even me, although I did confess to Piglet familiarity with some of the places and items mentioned ("Lake Michigan!  Mummy's been there Piglet!  And look!  They're harvesting cranberries in that picture.  Mummy has a carton of cranberry juice in the fridge!"  Clutching at straws).  My personal highlight of the book, though, is the way that children are encouraged to greet everyone in Wisconsin in the same way that In the Night Garden encourages them to greet and say goodnight to a family of miniscule wooden pegs and a pretend airship. 

GREETINGS, WISCONSIN CHEESE MAKERS!

Goodness knows what randomness awaits poor Piglet in his dreams.  It really is no wonder he has such trouble sleeping.

A Rock and a Hard Place

Piglet is now three months old and still basically nocturnal.  He is sitting in front of me on his bouncy chair now, sucking his thumb.  His thumb is his latest new discovery and one I have mixed feelings about.  On the one hand, I now feel less bad about denying him the dummy which various people (for "various people" read "my mother") keep suggesting.  To be honest, I can't logically explain why I'm so against the idea of a dummy.  I just think they look bad, like something that's been shoved in the child's mouth to shut them up with no thought for what really might be bothering them, and which stifles their freedom of expression (God, now I sound like one of those dreadful middle class mothers who grow their sons' hair into Harry Styles ringlets and allow little Milo and Harriet to race around gastropubs on scooters, pausing occasionally to doodle on the walls to express their creativity).  In other words, I enjoy listening to little Piglet's gurgles of happiness and shouts of reproach and don't want to plug his mouth with a plastic contraption in case he NEVER EVER SPEAKS, like Maggie from The Simpsons.  

However, the thumb sucking is not without its reservations.  As I try to manoeuvre his thumb into his mouth for the umpteenth time in the hope that he will be able to settle himself to sleep and not need me to rock him for several thousand years or provide him with unlimited nipple until it falls off, I do wonder if I am unintentionally giving him buck teeth and a childish habit that will last until his university days.  At this precise moment though, I will take anything that potentially helps him to settle himself to sleep.  So far he has been completely inept at sleep in general, and right now seems to prefer sitting in his bouncy chair looking at his hands to settling into a nice deep slumber.  At least he amuses himself.  The hands seem to be an endless source of fascination for him.  At the risk of sounding far too earnest for my own liking, it is fascinating to see him discover such essential body parts as hands, and realise that they belong to him and aren't just things that randomly flail about on either side of his eye line.

Another thing that Piglet has recently taken an interest in is his collection of muslins.  This morning he was so enthusiastic in his play with one of these that it ended up covering his eyes and he didn't know how to move it out of the way so that he could see again.  Again, this is something I have mixed feelings about.  On the one hand, I am thrilled that he is happy to play with something so simple, that we already have so many of, and which is more aesthetically pleasing that the reams of multicoloured plastic tat that are usually marketed as toys.  On the other hand, I am terrified that he will now end up like the friend of mine who screamed for the entire duration of the Year 7 French trip in 1992 because she forgot to bring her comfort blanket and couldn't sleep without it.

Motherhood.  It really is a choice between a rock and a hard place.

Essential Items for the "Nursery"

I just ate my dinner from start to finish with an angry Piglet sitting in his chair kicking his legs around and shouting at the TV, which I had turned him around to face to try and take his mind off the fact that Mummy was eating and not playing with him.

I am a terrible mother.

OK I may now have redeemed myself by cuddling him all through Downton Abbey (it is now several hours after I started writing this-nearly 11pm-and I have just put Piglet in his cot for the fourth time).  He has been fussing all evening.  His bedtime routine started at 6.20pm as usual and I was hoping he would be in bed in time for Strictly Come Dancing.  O what folly!  Instead he decided to whinge all the way through Strictly, X Factor and Downton.  Clearly one night of uninterrupted television (two.  Or maybe three as there's a new series on Thursday I like the look of) is too much to ask, for the rest of my life, ever.  Oh well, Piglet is worth it I suppose.

I had been reading another baby book that I got from the library the other day in an attempt to pick up some tips, in particular on sleep routines.  The thing about baby books is that the advice proffered is guaranteed to make you feel bad as inevitably there will be something the book suggests you do which you haven't done (or that the book says you should never do, which you do all the time), and as a result you will be made to feel that your child is now destined to grow up and become an axe murderer or general menace to society because you didn't give him a bottle of expressed breast milk for his night feed (please also note the use of the singular here, "night FEED."  Clearly the implication is that if your offspring is having more than one feed during the nocturnal hours then you are a failure and a bad parent who will end up being talked about in hushed tones at the school gates as the mother of "Piglet, who has NO boundaries.  Did you know that yesterday he weed-yes, WEED all over the headteacher's office?"

Another annoying thing about these books is the outrageous assumption they make that you are a) middle class-live in a house rather than a flat, have a car and a selection of Cath Kidston aprons; are not a teenage mother and b) have a husband, which I find somewhat presumptuous.  There are, for example, many mothers who are single, or who are married to other women.  Clearly I myself am in the former category.  In the particular book I borrowed from the library, there was far too long a list of baby-related items that the author deemed "essential" to purchase.  For example, a baby monitor-not necessary when you live in a one bedroom flat.  I know only too well that I can hear Piglet cry wherever I am in my very small flat.  Not everyone lives in some sort of palatial stately home where one may find oneself in a completely different wing of the house to the baby (like in Downton Abbey.  Has Lady Mary actually met her son?  It seems to me that Lady Edith spends more time with her secret daughter who lives in a different house than Lady Mary does with the son and heir whose name I don't even remember.  She could definitely do with a baby monitor).  Also, the book kept banging on about things you need for the "nursery"-not just a baby monitor, apparently, but a night light and a special chair for breastfeeding.  Firstly, my iphone has a perfectly good light on it thanks, so why would I go wasting money on some sort of specialist baby light that is bound to be bright pink, plastic and shaped like a character from In the Night Garden and ruin the feng shui?  Secondly, a chair specifically for breastfeeding?  What's wrong with a normal chair?  What is a breastfeeding chair anyway?  One shaped like a breast?  And lastly, who even has a nursery to put these things in?  Who do they think I am, Tamara bloody Ecclestone?  Clearly this book is a ruse to make me feel bad about being single and impoverished.  Not only this, but the author proudly boasted about how she moved her children into their poncey nurseries when they were only Piglet's age, in clear contradiction of the current guidelines which state that the baby should be in the same room as you for at least the first six months.  The woman is a charlatan.  She is practically Lady Mary, banishing her child like that.

And I did not just say that to make me feel better about the fact that Piglet and I will more than likely still be sharing a room when he is in his teens (I mean due to financial constraints, not because I am weird).  I think I will write a baby book of my own.  After all, I'm sure Britney Spears' mother wrote a parenting manual at some point.  And look how poor Britters turned out.  Admittedly she's done all right for herself, all things considered, but I'm pretty sure she's mentally deranged as a result.  Anyway, I could be a pushy stage mother, easy.  This week I suggested to Piglet that he might want to try ballet when he's older.  That's definitely a start.

Piglet wreaks vengeance upon Mummy for ignoring him in favour of outrageous coat-lust

Knackered.  It has just taken me four hours to get Piglet to sleep.

According to everyone in my NCT class, their babies now sleep from about 8-9pm and wake up an average of once per night.  Piglet goes to bed at variable times, but rarely before 11pm, and wakes up an average of three times.  This didn't bother me-I generally catch up on sleep in the mornings by ignoring Piglet until at least 11am-until I heard that people in my NCT class were having wild times, drinking wine, watching television and painting their nails, AFTER their babies had gone to bed. So I decided I wanted some of this unbridled hedonism for myself, especially since I have read repeatedly on the Internets that one must train babies to go to sleep on their own, otherwise one ends up with an eighteen year old who wants to be rocked to sleep every night and share the parental bed.  

To this end, I decided to start Piglet's bedtime routine at 7.30pm tonight, as there was nothing on TV, so I bathed Piglet, considered reading him a story but vetoed this idea as he doesn't appear to show any interest in books just yet, attempted to get him to watch In the Night Garden as I had heard it has a hypnotic effect on all children and sends them to sleep-only to discover that In the Night Garden finished forty minutes ago, thus proving my point that Piglet is going to bed far too late-put him in his sleepsuit, fed him, cuddled him and then put him in his cot and walked off.

Those exact actions were then repeated an infinite number of times (minus the bath), to no avail.  Eventually I phoned my mother in desperation, explaining that Piglet would not go to sleep and was shouting at me in baby-language from his cot, reproaching me for being a terrible mother and-to my horror and distress-probably learning from experience that his cries were not being heard and that his emotions do not matter.  The latter is something that I have read on the Internet and in many baby books is the result of leaving babies to cry.  And even though Piglet was not at this point crying, merely making random noises, I figured that I was already in a precarious position having spent most of the afternoon ignoring Piglet in favour of perusing various online shopping emporiums for something resembling this beauteous coat, but costing about a thousandth of the price (and I mean that literally.  This coat costs £7000.  Cue lottery-win fantasies about how I would swan around on my yacht/sleigh in this fabulous coat, looking nothing like an extra from Sesame Street).

I mean, is this not the greatest coat you've ever seen?

I think we can now conclude that Piglet has definitely had his retribution for the coat-hunting, ignoring baby scenario.  And hopefully the lesson we have all learnt from this is that Mummy cannot afford the £7000 coat, and already has a considerable collection of fur coats, and not that fur coats stand above Piglet in the pecking order.  He is slightly above even this fabulous creation.

Not by much though.

Insomnia: I CAN'T GET NO SLEEP

Yes, in the words of Faithless, those great sages of 1996, I need to sleep I can't get no sleep.

The baby, meanwhile, is sleeping like, er, a baby.

I'm not sure why people use that phrase, as "sleeping like a baby" clearly doesn't mean lying in a crib suspended between two trees in a gentle forest resembling Tellytubby Land, rocking gently while a soft breeze lulls the baby into a peaceful pink-cheeked slumber more profound than that of Sleeping Beauty, but refusing point blank to go to sleep until well past midnight, needing to be rocked by a knackered mother for half an hour thereafter and then waking at two hourly intervals for a bit of boob following at least twenty minutes of squeaking and flailing arms about while Anxious Mother looks on nervously to check Baby has not fallen victim to some terrible accident in the co-sleeper.

That very same Anxious Mother is not being helped to sleep by either of the following (both entirely non-baby related):
a) Classic 1996 dance anthem Insomnia is now stuck in my head.  As pleasant as the memory of those years of GCSEs and trying to get into clubs wearing a sparkly blue bra top and so called "hipster" trousers, neither of which I shall ever be able to wear again, may be, it isn't conducive to a peaceful night's sleep.
b) Upon reflection on the poor state of my finances, I decided to ditch the decaffeinated tea I have been drinking for the past year in favour of the caffeinated version, purely because the former only comes in small boxes of sixty or so teabags, thus making it less good value than the larger boxes of so-called "regular" tea.  See how thrifty I am?  See?

The Devil's Own Drink

Given the number of cups of tea I am prone to sink in a day, combined with my lack of tolerance for what must surely be one of the world's most addictive sleep-depriving substances after a year of withdrawal, I am now, to use another analogy from the unsurpassable dance music of the nineties, about as wired as Keith Flint from the Prodigy singing Firestarter in a vat of Red Bull whilst slapping his head repeatedly.

AND THE BABY IS SLEEPING.

This can only mean that come tomorrow, yet another attempt to get Piglet into a routine that does not involve going to bed past midnight and sleeping on and off until nearly midday is going to fail, as I will be too knackered to implement it.  And meanwhile, everyone from my NCT class is busy breathing a collective sigh of relief that their babies now sleep virtually through the night, thanks to their rigid routines.  I have not felt like such a failure of a mother since July, when all seven expectant mothers in that class managed to pop out their babies before me, despite mine being due third.  THIRD.

Perhaps this is why their babies all seem to have such superior circadian rhythms, because they have been in the outside world for longer (I hate to say they are "older," preferring to rate babies' ages by their conception dates, or failing that their birth weights, to make myself feel better about the being last situation).  Not that I am in any way competitive or anything.  My life in no way resembles that scene in Baby Boom when Diane Keaton overhears the pushy mothers in the park discussing all the classes their babies are doing so that they can get into the best nursery and start on a lifelong course of academic achievement culminating in graduation from an Ivy League university.

Although come to think of it, that's no guarantee of success.  After all, I went to Oxford and here I am, in a state of such abject poverty that I have to buy caffeinated tea because it works out slightly cheaper than the decaff, and taking detours to Wilkinson's to buy the toilet roll that's on special offer.

Anyway, I must go, I have to keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack or something.  I can't get no sleep.

Subsistence Parenting

Yes I admit it.  Guilty as charged.

Yes I did put the baby in the car seat to sleep while I had my lunch.  And we weren't in a car.  And (voice drops to a barely audible whisper) I didn't even fasten the straps.

Surely God will strike me down with a lightning bolt.  Or at the very least a crack team of virtuous mothers will be sent from Mumsnet to chase me with torches and drum me out of town.

In other news, hot on the heels of the two hours sleep I had last night, Mother (my own mother, that is) is constantly hassling me to call the doctor/health visitor/anyone else who might be susceptible to a bout of new-parent hysteria to report all crying episodes.  Anyone would think it wasn't normal for babies to cry and prevent their parents from getting any sleep.

She is also trying to get me to go to a breastfeeding support group in the local area.  Not a bad idea, you might say, except that I am basically Hyacinth Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances and refuse to associate with anyone from the immediate surrounding area as all are plebeians who fail to understand the difference between "your" and "you're."

Anyway, Piglet is waking up now and about to start screaming for food...

Piglet: On First Name Terms with the NHS

Well yesterday's post (the Secret Weapon, by the way, was about to be revealed as a baby sling.  Regrettably it turned out not to be such a vote-winner later that evening, when Piglet bawled non-stop for ten minutes in it, and I took it off, thinking maybe it was too tight and crushing his little testicles) pretty much sums it up.  You start doing something productive; cooking, eating, drinking a cup of tea, writing this blog, sleeping...and immediately Piglet starts screaming and whatever necessary life task one happens to be engaged in is abandoned, never to be returned to, whilst all one's energy is taken up with trying to halt the bawling.

Last night it got so bad that my mother, who had sworn that she would be sleeping tonight and I would have to cope with Piglet's squealing alone, burst into the room and announced that his persistent crying was not normal and I should phone NHS Direct.  This then led to a 1am dash across Bristol to the only walk-in centre that was still open, in order to get him checked out by a nurse who pronounced him "colicky," which was exactly the diagnosis my mother had already made (I had gone for "acid reflux," but the nurse reassured me that this was not the case).  The good news (other than that Piglet was not, as my mother seemed to have feared, dying) was that when we finally returned, he actually went to sleep.  Hallelujah.

Give that this was the fourth time THIS WEEK that Piglet and I have accessed the services of the NHS in one form or another, I think we can now safely say that for probably the first time ever, I am definitely seeing a good return on all the tax I've paid.

He's Wailing, He's Wailing Again...

Well, he is here.  And you know who I mean by "He."

The promised messiah.

In fact, it's not far off.  I have started singing Away in a Manger to him at night and switching the name "Jesus" for His name.  To all extents and purposes, he will henceforth be known as Piglet, the moniker I chose for him in the hospital when I discovered that when he wants feeding he snaffles like a pig.

Piglet is currently in his bouncy chair, in the early stages of crying.  I am guessing that he feels abandoned as his mother has forsaken him in favour of the Internet.  He is, however, starting to look at the shapes on his bouncy chair with interest, which at least suggests that he is not, as I had feared, blind.  One worries about such things, especially when people (my brother) are all too keen to point out how cross-eyed he is, and the midwife encourages me to take him to the doctor to check out his "sticky eyes" (the doctor didn't seem too concerned, although he did hand me a printout from the internet explaining how sticky eyes could be caused by chlamydia caught from me.  Let's hope that's not the case).

Anyway, much as I would love to write a long post explaining the birth and everything that has happened since in excruciating detail, Piglet has now decided to go to sleep and his every sleeping moment is what I call a Mummy Sleep Emergency, meaning that I have to go to sleep as quickly as possible so that I can be alert when he is, which is usually at 3am.  Just so that you can get a feel for an average night, the following is a rough synopsis of how the events of last night unfolded.

10pm Mummy thinks it might be time for bed, and gives Piglet to Granny to bounce about and try to soothe following three hours of solid breastfeeding.  Meanwhile, Mummy starts moving all the things she needs for the night ahead upstairs.  This takes about half an hour, as the list of necessaries is enormous, and includes two tupperware bowls of water (one to bathe his sticky eyes and one to wash his bum), a bag of cotton wool, lanolin ointment for sore nipples (mine, not his), Sudocrem for nappy rash (his, not mine), changing mat, nappies, Infacol (medicine for the mysterious ailment known as "colic" or, in the colloqiual, "windy-pops"), mobile phone, ipad (for keeping myself sane during night feeds), glass of water.

10.30pm Piglet and I settle into bed.  Granny fusses around for ten minutes wondering if Piglet is intermittently "too cold" (closes windows, proffers extra blankets), or "too hot" (opens windows again, unbuttons babygro).  I argue that he is neither and tell her to stop fussing.  Granny eventually leaves.

10.41pm The wailing starts.  I pick Piglet up and feed him.  This takes about an hour.

11.42pm Piglet is back in the cot, following a half-hearted attempt to "wind" him by throwing him over my shoulder into a fireman's lift and patting his back enthusiastically for five seconds until I start worrying I'm going to damage him and put him down, praying that sleep will follow.  I take the opportunity to send a few emails whilst observing Piglet to check he is still breathing and not about to start wailing.

12.00  Sleep!

12.57am Woken by Piglet starting to stir.  Upon peering into the Moses basket, I see that he is violently shoving his fists into his mouth.  This means he wants feeding.  Again.

12.58-2.25am Constant feeding, interspersed with five minute intervals where Piglet lies in my arms studying my face carefully, probably wondering exactly who and what I am.

2.26am Back in the Moses basket, light off, lie down.  Bliss....

2.27am Wailing again.  Pacing up and down the bedroom bouncing Piglet around, singing every nursery rhyme I can remember, along with a few Christmas carols and some of the songs from Grease 2.  Nothing works.

2.35am Granny re-enters the fray, snatches Piglet and does the exact same thing.  I lie in bed with the duvet over my head.  Am officially Useless Mother.

3.37am Granny finally leaves, having failed to settle Piglet.  I feed him again.

4.20am Put Piglet in Moses basket and start praying.  We both finally fall asleep.

6am Wailing again.

See what I mean.  He is already starting to stir again from his brief nap, which commenced 15 minutes ago.  I may never sleep again.