Sleepy times

After eight and a half months of motherhood I've decided to write a blog post about Lola's sleeping patterns. I'm forever asking my mother how my sister and I slept as babies but she can't remember. I can now understand how that happens. Three months ago feels like a bit of a blur, 29 years must feel like a big blur. By recording it here I will be in a position to relay it to Lola should she ever ask me.

One of the first things people ask you when they enquire about your offspring, whether they're a friend or random stranger in the post office is, "how does she sleep"? Till fairly recently my response was always "terribly". Or something along those lines.

For the first couple of weeks of her life Lola was up every hour or two at night but it didn't matter. We'd leap out of bed at the first murmur to tend to her and were strangely excited by the fact that she was awake. The novelty soon wore off and serious sleep deprivation kicked in at around weeks 3 and 4. I was completely exhausted and wondering when on earth it was going to stop. I seem to remember week 6 being a turning point - not for Lola as she was still up constantly - but for us (well, certainly for me) as it started to feel normal. Don't get me wrong, I was tired, but it was just a case of feeding her back to sleep (which only took a few minutes) and then jumping back into bed. We were on autopilot and it became everyday stuff.

When she reached about four months the reflux started and that was pure hell. Lola was in pain at night suffering from acid indigestion and as the only thing which could console her was being completely upright - which meant Paul or I needed to be too. It was such a hideous time, which felt like it lasted about three years. In reality it probably lasted about three weeks.

Just before Lola turned six months something shifted and she settled. While she didn't manage it every single night, more often than not she slept from 6.30 to 7ish, waking once for a feed at around 4 or 5am. This was pure heaven for me. I started to go to bed at night looking forward to the stretch of sleep ahead of me, rather than wondering how soon I was going to be up and out of bed again. It felt amazing. Some people still threw me a look or words of sympathy when I explained this was what she was up to, but it was such a huge improvement that I felt like I was staying in a 5 star hotel each night. There's this idea that getting your baby to sleep for 12 hours is the ultimate, but I believe that if getting up once (or however many times) in the night works for you, then what's the problem?

Don't get me wrong, we still had the odd night of hell. We even had the odd few nights of hell - particularly when we spent a couple of weeks away in October. And the bad nights were seriously bad. That's the thing about having it good. Having it bad again is awful.

So seven nights ago the unthinkable happened. We stopped Lola's night feeds and she's slept easily for 12 hours each night. OK, so on two nights we popped our heads in at 4.30 to give her back her rabbit but it's likely she was just making noises in her sleep and we didn't really need to.

It's AMAZING. I feel like a new woman. And I'm also terrified that I've jinxed the entire thing by writing this post. While I'm not naive enough to think that things will be perfect every night going forwards, I'm just hopeful that this is all a step in the right direction. Please, please keep your fingers crossed for the de Cozar Rushforths.