[This is long, and dull, and sleep-addled, and written mainly for my own benefit. Read on at your own risk, and if you find it dull, sleep-addled, and mainly for my own benefit, well, you were warned.]

I’m notoriously shit at knowing when enough is enough, at accepting that there are limits, at deciding a thing once and for all and bloody well sticking with it. If you’re in any doubt about the shitness of my abilities in this respect, see, for proof, the many, many times I decided that I’d had it with doing a PhD, and would stop all this nonsense forthwith before the ol’ brain became any more addled by the whole thinking malarky. See what I mean? Yes. Indecisive, and not very good at knowing when to stop.

Last night, I reached the point where truly, I felt I’d reached That Point. That point where sleep became the absolute priority. That point where I could no longer find just a little bit more to hand over, that extra few minutes of attention and nurture, that constant reassurance. Sleep for me has become something of a mythical beast. I hear that others do it; I hear that it’s not unheard of for it to happen for hours at a time. I even hear that babies do it. Other people’s babies, of course. Not ours. No. Not ours. Well, not for more than a couple of hours. (As I type that, that ‘couple of hours’, I am already beating myself up, thinking ‘ah, but it could be worse – I have read of people whose babies sleep less than that at two, yet they maintain a gentle, nurturing approach throughout the night, somehow finding it within them to maintain constancy while only getting two hours’ sleep a night; this, in some way, means I am a failure as a parent, and am clearly not trying hard enough.’ See? I have a very well-developed inner critic, who is at least in part responsible for the continual academic woe which has dogged my adult life.)

Well.

I took the witchling to see the cranial osteopath yesterday. It was our fourth appointment, and it’s costing us £30 a go, having cost £50 for the initial ‘can I help’ assessment. So, not cheap. The osteopath pronounced yesterday’s session to be the most useful yet, saying that a positive change had definitely taken place, and adding that he thought a breakthrough imminent. He also said he thought that we might have an easier night of it as a result. I should add that the previous few nights had been pretty hellish, frankly. The witchling has been waking every hour and a half or so, sometimes more often, and then having about two hours or more wide awake, somewhere between midnight and four in the morning, before wailing herself inside out (I think at least partly because she is simply cross that I don’t get up and entertain her) and going back to sleep until about 6.00. She is then awake, largely, and up for the day at seven-ish. During the day, we are lucky if she sleeps for more than an hour without needing some sort of persuasion; sometimes it’s a question of turning her over, sometimes of feeding, but normally she needs something to continue sleeping.

Last night was woeful.

She went to bed at 6.45. So far, so good. She slept until 9.30. Then she woke again at 10, 11, 12, 1 and was awake from 1 until about 3, when I crawled into the extension (where Quercus has been sleeping, the newly-created attic being the only place in which one cannot hear the midnight wailing sessions; I’ve always felt that one of us needs to be sleeping in order to keep the house running, and Quercus has a lot on his plate with the extension-buildingness) and Quercus asked, as he does every time, if there was anything he could do, or if I needed help. This time, before my brain had chance to kick in with the über-mama, my mouth wailed ‘yesssssssssssIneeeeeeedtosleeeeeeeeeeeeeep!’. So, for the first time ever, Quercus took over while I went and slept. We had a long talk about what we’ve been doing, first, and we agreed that things can’t continue like this. I am constantly tired. I am pretty miserable, truth be told. I don’t think it’s post-natal depression, but simple, old-fashioned exhaustion. I haven’t had more than three hours’ unbroken sleep for the best part of five months. Mostly, I don’t get more than two hours, let alone three. I often get about five hours as a total in any given night, and I rarely get chance to catch up (catch up! ha!) during the day, partly because there isn’t chance and partly because I need some time to myself to switch off, or to do other things (thesis, anyone?), and the only time I get the chance is during the witchling’s brief daytime snoozes. It’s just not working.

I feel so selfish for saying this. I feel that I should instinctively know what to do in order to achieve the nighttime harmony of which I have read. I also feel stupid for having read books and believed them. I’ve mentioned attachment parenting before; well, I still feel that much of it is true, and laudable, but for us at least, the nighttime bit is just complete bollocks. The witchling isn’t in pain, or wet, or cold, or hungry. She is just awake. And my instinct, and Quercus’s, is that she is, frankly, trying it on, at least to some extent. And the result, because, thanks to the bastard books I have read, I am completely paranoid about ‘breaking her trust’, is that I sit there and suck it up, night after night, quietly despairing and resolving to do something differently if only I can have four hours of sleep, quiet, uninterrupted sleep. I’m not asking the world, I tell myself. I am happy to get up and feed her twice, three times. But every hour? I can’t keep this up.

Tonight, I am taking the first stint. Then, at 2.00 or so, Quercus and I are doing a shift-change. I’m hoping that when she realises that we mean this, and that food is not constantly on offer (and I don’t think that she can need feeding that often now, surely…?), she will realise that buggering about is for the daytime, not the night. So I’m clear: there will be no formula feeding, let me be clear on that. I have no intention of altering that path; we haven’t just spent the last five months breastfeeding her exclusively to give that up in favour of something that is profoundly inferior just because sleep is an issue. I also don’t believe that weaning is the key; she isn’t hungry in the night, but bored, I think, and very used to the fact that if she wakes and feels a bit fussy, I will catch her up and turn myself inside out trying to get her to go back to sleep. So, please don’t suggest that I should start feeding her ‘proper’ food, or giving her a dummy, or a bottle of formula. While I may regret some of the reading I have done, I can’t, and won’t, argue with the studies which show clearly that breastmilk is the best option for babies up to six months or so, and the witchling shows no sign that food is the problem here: she is putting weight on, has done so consistently, and often declines to feed if I offer it during these nighttime battles.

I am, of course, busy beating myself up about this choice, but at the same time, it almost doesn’t feel like a choice. I don’t want to wish this time away. I want to enjoy being a mother. I love my little daughter so much that it actually aches, and I hate to think of anything which might upset her. But at the same time, I am doing this at the constant sacrifice of myself to an extent which I just can’t keep up. To be the parent I want to be, I need to be able to think of things to do with her, to take her out, to talk to her and enjoy the time we spend together. I can’t continue dreading bedtime, going to bed later and later because I fear the start of the next round. I can’t function like this. I’m in a fog, and life feels pretty bleak. Something must change.