After the birth of my first child, something dreadful happened. Something so out of my control that it became our dirty little secret. Something I’d only discuss with my partner in the safety of our own home, or in hushed tones over the phone to my mum. Something I went to great lengths to hide at NCT reunions and baby bounce sessions in the local library (a weekly 45-minute period during which a few new friends and I would jiggle our not-yet-conscious infants on our knees while being regaled enthusiastically with nursery rhymes by the tone-deaf librarian). The problem was: our daughter was sleeping through the night.
From the age of six weeks or so, she would be laid down in the evening and would sleep through for eight or 10 hours straight. Some mornings I’d find myself peering over her cot at 8.30am, checking for a pulse. If we wanted to go to the pub in the evening, we’d pop her on a table with a blanket and within seconds she’d be snoring, to the delight of passing drunks. At this stage, none of my old friends had had kids yet and because I didn’t know much about the logistics of parenthood, I didn’t realise what a blessing a sleeping baby was.
Just once I made the mistake of divulging my daughter’s snoozing habits, in passing, to a group of fellow new mums – the outpouring of venomous rage was enough to tie my tongue for good. So I’m not surprised to see the envy of knackered parents this week, as a video showing a baby going straight to sleep in under a minute went viral. The kid’s face is stroked with a tissue, which might seem an unorthodox technique, but I can guarantee that there will be any number of desperate parents giving it a go this weekend.
This brings me to another admission: at the time, I secretly put my daughter’s sleeping down to my own maternal achievements. Something I’d done, albeit unknowingly, something in the choices my partner and I had made had contributed to her restful inner rhythm. I also couldn’t understand what these other women were being so moany about. I mean, sleep is nice. I’d had enough early mornings for work to know that not getting your share of meaningful rest can be a mood dampener. But was it really bad enough to turn so many of the perfectly peaceful people I’d met during their pregnancies into wild-eyed creatures, obsessively rocking buggies in cramped cafes for hours, while bitterly trying to outdo each other over how little sleep they’d had?
And then, 18 months ago, I had my son. Instantly, a new world opened up: a world of all-night rocking, all-day shaking and feelings of rage I’d never before known. I now understand that being seriously, relentlessly sleep-deprived is bad. Life-shattering, at times. Not least because this total physical and mental wipeout comes at a time when you’re not just trying to manage the basic things in life, like how to make a cup of tea or remembering to look before crossing the road. This happens to be precisely the moment when you’re having to navigate an unknown path – making decisions on behalf of a tiny helpless creature for whom you are responsible; trying to do the right thing. What is more, now you’re not allowed to just trundle on in a stupor, in the age of parenting you have to be seen to be “combating the situation”.
To this end, wherever you turn, there will be someone offering yet another conflicting piece of advice about the best way to get your baby to sleep. Of course, there are tricks and methods that may well help, from dream feeding to, erm, repeatedly fanning your baby’s face with a tissue; I’ve tried more than a few, with varying success. But ultimately, whether your baby wants to sleep is not always within your control. Inevitably they will choose the night before a career-defining presentation to get crippling trapped wind, because babies are buggers like that. But they are also just babies.
And so, the thought I hold dear at 3am when my son and I are wailing in unison is that it won’t last forever. That and the hope that my friend who has a new sleeping-through-the-night baby might one day go on to have another who will, with any luck, redress the balance.
