How your baby sleeps needs to work for you too

In the first few months, my baby slept through everything – heavy metal, the busy London road outside, loud neighbours – peacefully in her cot. Feeding might be up the creek, I thought, but we’ve got a sleeper! And then something changed. At four months, she would wake so regularly it pushed me and my partner to our limit. At one stage it was every 40 minutes, like clockwork, and she wasn’t the only one. Messages on my ‘new mums’ WhatsApp group recounted tales of how friends had walked into walls or locked themselves out of their homes through sheer exhaustion.

We tried so many things: a sleep consultant, a strict nap schedule, pink noise, white noise, osteopathy, Ewan The Sheep. We co-slept, fed to sleep, shushed and patted until our arms went numb. The list goes on. We even followed the exact same schedule as a friend, whose baby now sleeps through the night… ours doesn’t. And perhaps it’s exactly this. Some babies sleep soundly from the off, some don’t. Some need space; some want to be cuddled all night. I drove myself crazy trying to create the perfect environment and still ended up singing Twinkle Twinkle for the thousandth time at 3am. And it’s not just about them. Ask yourself what you want too. Is co-sleeping for you? Are you better with a schedule? Do you want to sleep train? It’s about finding what works for you as a family until it no longer works and then trying something new.

It’s normal for relationships to change

There’s no doubt relationships change when you throw a baby into the mix – how can they not? We went from date nights, holidays and leisurely Sunday mornings to sleepless nights, high-fiving over dirty nappies and squabbling about who left the stair gate open. Particularly in those first few months, we were both in survival mode with all our energy spent caring for our baby and none left for each other. Yet despite what social media portrays, it’s 100% normal. We’ve gone through one of the most transformational things that’ll ever happen to us, both individually and as a couple. It takes time to learn how to evolve as a family of three and as a couple.

Eleven months in, there are still grumpy exchanges and disagreements, but remembering to treat each other with kindness and empathy goes a long way (easier said than done when you’ve not slept for four days). It’s also important to remember that we’re both still the same idiots underneath it all; we’re just trying to figure out this thing called parenting as best we can.

“What I learned from my first year of motherhood”