Have a Very Good Night!

I woke up one morning, finding neither husband nor baby in bed. Groggy and panic-stricken (or as panic-stricken as grogginess allows), I stumbled downstairs and found Daddy Low scrunched up on the sofa, while Baby Low lay asleep in his buggy. I woke Daddy Low up and he explained that he had decided to bring Julien downstairs, because Baby was simply too noisy after the last feed at 4am.

And this has been how our "nightlife" has been like for the past few nights - me handling the early morning feeds and Daddy taking over at 3 or 4am. And Baby having his own little party in his Moses basket, with the decibels increasing until Daddy gets up and rocks him or whisks him from the room, because by then Mummy is simply too tired and blissfully switches off and falls truly asleep, because it is now Daddy's shift.

Some nights, Daddy is just too shattered and Mummy takes on the whole night, because, after all, Daddy has to work and needs his rest. Generally, I try to soothe Baby by all means without having to leave the warmth of the bed. Until one night when a desperately tired Daddy simply could not take it anymore and glared at us from under the covers. I slunk out of the room with Julien after that. The next day, Daddy asked, "Perhaps, I should sleep in the study?"

It was a question I have been dreading. And also one my other new-mum girlfrens are discussing.

No one is happy about this, but everyone has different reactions to the situation. N's husband has been sleeping in the living room sofa for a few nights now. And N sees it as a matter of practical problem-solving. The rest of us have considered it and some have even discussed it with their partners, but none of us have done it, because we really don't want to.

Besides wanting to have our partners with us, I think we all understand that once the men are out of the room, then all the work ends up with yours truly. And it's not the most appetizing thought, when you have been at it the whole day. Of course, the men do prefer to sleep in the bedroom too. Not only is the mummy and baby there, so is the comfortable bed!

But what are we to do with the noisy babies? For it seems everyone is afflicted by the Noisy Baby Syndrome. By this stage of 2-3 weeks, our babies seem to be all acting up, all wanting to be soothed, rocked or carried before they would go back to sleep. Julien, especially, can often go on forever. Plus jerky hand and leg movements to boot!

The solution is, of course, staring at us in the face - Baby can go to his own room next door. His cot bed is, after all, ready. And so is the baby monitor.

Many of us are not keen to put our little ones in the next room though. For one, the Health Service has ingrained it well in us that newborns should be in the same room with us to avoid Sudden Infant Cot Death. Being a sound sleeper, I personally prefer Julien in the same room, because I usually only wake when he cries loudly, even when his Moses basket is next to me.

But more than anything, I think I really, actually cannot bear to have my baby far away from me, unsupervised. I think, despite the baby monitor (and we do have a very good one), some part in me always worry that something may happen to Baby and the monitor will not pick up the noise or I will simply not hear the monitor, given the other more direct noises in the room I am in. I guess it's similar to the fears that first-time mothers have, when they leave their babies with someone else for the first time, while they go out for a movie or some couple time.

So, we are back to the same struggle every night. And I can only hope that Julien will learn some bedside manners and be more of a gentleman when asleep. Otherwise, I may just have to buy a pair of ear plugs for Daddy!