Babies don't sleep.
And anyone who has somehow managed to acquire one that does, I can assure you it's either 'pure luck', or that you've now become so delirious from the sleep deprivation (and accompanying gin-habit) that you've actually stopped noticing when you're awake...
For the rest of us, bedtime with a newborn is a vicious cycle of anxiety, exhaustion, wine and desperately surfing the internet for any clue as what you possibly could have done in past life to deserve this form of anti-sleep related torture...
So here's a list of things we've all done in search for the holy-parenting grail that is a good night's sleep:
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- Got out of bed as noisily as possible so your baby knows you really shitting mean it this time.
- But then crept out of the nursery like a frickin' ninja. On tip-toes. Backwards. One boob hanging free. Balancing a Sophie-the-bastard-Giraffe on your head. Holding your breath. Without blinking.
- Begun checking Amazon for perfect prep machines. Ewan the Dream Sheep. And boarding schools.
- Decided that slightly crusty cot-sheet will be fine... They're in a bloody grobag... It's not like they're rolling around naked in their own filth.
- It's 5am. You haven't been to sleep since Tuesday. Your baby is piping liquid yellow faeces into their gro-bag like squeezing banana porridge out of an Ella's Kitchen pouch... You leave them rolling around naked in their own filth.
- Taken to Twitter. To call your baby things you literally can't say to their face. Because you're too scared your newborn infant will somehow understand you.
- Reminded yourself that the four month sleep regression can happen in months one, two and three as well. Along with month five. Upwards. Forever. Until you're dead.
- Been truly at the end of your tether, after finally getting your baby to sleep, then realising... shit... You can't remember if the black out blind is down and your baby is wearing a POLYESTER BABYGRO. CODE RED. CODE RED. I repeat CODE RED. (Now repeat points one through to seven again...)
- Become inconsolable after not being able to locate the muslin that you left RIGHT F@*KING THERE FOR F@*K's F@*KING SAKE. The bedding is white. The muslin is white. You can't turn the light on... What do you do...?! That's right. Cry. Until your husband wakes up and finds the muslin instantly without even opening both eyes...
- Accidentally entered the nursery naked. (You're too exhausted to recall how to clothe yourself. Or use eyes.) So sat there freezing your tits off, (quite literally if you're breastfeeding), then realised that your shivering seems to have provided some kind of sleep inducing vibration, and that this is it now. You're here for the night. Time to get on twitter.
- After exhausting all the useful advice Google has to offer, you've begun begging. Using your best truly-pathetic-desperate voice. So your baby knows you really shitting mean it this time.
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