First Time Baby is three weeks old now and things are going well! First Time Mum and I are getting used to nights of broken sleep and bizarely I actually seem to be getting more productive, not less.
First Time Baby likes night time. She has decided that day time is nice and everything, but night time is great! Night time is wake time!
I swear she is actually more awake at night time then she is during the day. It gets to about 10pm and First Time Baby drops off after the late evening feed. First Time Mum and I rush to action stations. Our previously unknown professional mime skills kick in as we mouth to each other "you get the moses basket, I'll get the baby... You get the lights... GO GO GO!"
So gently laying our nocturnal angel into her moses basket alongside our bed, we climb/drop into bed reach for the switch on the lamp and cuddle up close as we hold our breath for just long enough to see if she's going to wake up... nothing? no noise? dammit we have to check on her anyway now. No noise is as bad as lots of noise.
Lights off. Eyes shut, all asleep. Deep inside my subconscious, I am calculating feeding routines and an overcomplicated formula to forecast length of sleep based on length of feeding and taking into account variables such as the time I have to get up (minus half an hour) which is when First Time Baby likes to go back to sleep again!
SCREAM. What's that noise? CRY. Was that her? WHINGE. Oh, OK then, must be time for us all to get up! Middle-of-night-action-stations... First Time Mum gets First Time Baby out of moses basket, while trying to wake up and undress herself at the same time ready to feed.
I'm slowly stirring, approaching stage 1 in the First Time Dad middle-of-night routine. That means open one eye. Yep feeding in progress, can't help there. Stage 2: open two eyes, can hear a funny noise, like a low humming, broken up, punctuated into a series of smaller hums. The aural fog clears, the small hums are in fact words. First Time Mum is saying something to me. Can't. quite. make. it. out.
ARE YOU ASLEEP! Dammit. maybe. Right then, my turn to get up winding duty, nappy change time.
More feeding ensues, I get on the computer and do some work. All three of us gradually getting more sleepy. Time to go back to bed for another couple of hours before the alarm clock goes off. That's the radio alarm clock, not the wriggly alarm clock.
Ah. Sleep time. And then suddenly a noise like a slightly punctured balloon. Nappy change time again, First Time Baby is awake as she can be, held standing up against my chest, she is really starting to perfect that meercat impression.
Morning all.
