Mommy blog: The sleep equation

Sleep deprivation is part of the package and everyone quips about it incessantly before your baby comes. I was prepared for less sleep for me, not less sleep for her. She was born in Goa and was a baby who almost immediately adopted the sussegad way of life. Yet, when it came to sleep she would not blink. Once she slept it was all good, but getting her there was the hardest thing I have ever done. I remember reading Bringing up Bebe, that tome on French parenting before S was born and I was confident I would be a "French parent". The pause principle, which is repeated in the book again and again was all about allowing your child to self soothe and settle rather than picking her up the moment she whined. I was also determined to bring up a good traveller, given that both me and the husband spent whatever we earned on vacations (and food, though not necessarily in that order). The husband and I read the book, discussed it ad nauseum and decided this was the path we had to take. The book also discussed sleep habits and eating at length and armed with this knowledge, we set off to become the coolest parents yet (all first timers always feel they have it down pat).

But S refused to nap like babies her age were supposed to. I had read Dr Sears, logged onto The Sleep Lady online a million times and even revisited the sleep sense which had seemed a tough act to follow initially. I started dreading the evenings when the incessant wailing would begin and she would not sleep. I found myself looking at the clock every other night... 10pm and still no sign of sleep? This seemed like a betrayal to a mother who had slept between 9.30pm and 10pm almost through her childhood and adult life. I stared in horror as the hands of the clock slowly danced their mad dance. The husband tried to shush her into sleepiness, keeping her on his chest for as long as he could, hoping it would mean lights out. Within a few weeks I was exhausted. Are you serious? Parenthood is certainly not all it is drummed up to be and I was still waiting for my aha moment. When S was six weeks I found myself in Calcutta; spending a few weeks with my parents had never seemed more attractive. In those days S was sleeping at 10pm but soon after the clock struck 6 the hysterics would begin. Then the other madness began. She would knock off only to wake up shrieking the moment I put her down. "Don't rock her and keep her on your lap," my practical mother warned me. "You will suffer later and by then it will be too late." So i spent three weeks putting her down, again and again and again. At the end of three weeks she was no longer waking when detached from me. Small, meaningful victory.

"I think you need to start making her sleep earlier," said my mother one evening. Earlier? No way. I did not want to wake up at the crack of dawn. Like most new parents I wanted to maximise my sleep hours and it suited me to make her sleep when I did. "Try it, I think she cries because she is sleepy," mum explained. Then why the hell doesn't she sleep? I thought to myself. Reluctantly I began putting her to bed at nine and lo behold, she slept better. Nine became eight and before I knew it, at three months we began her sleep routine at 7pm. "It is way too early," warned friends and family. Early for whom? I was wary of letting them in on the secret that soon after, at four months, S was sleeping eight hours at a stretch and by five months, had shrugged off her night feed.

Our lives came back to normal (almost) for a bit before she discovered that she could pull herself up in the cot, so sleep time became an endless battle, a game played out nightly, each side waiting to see who would tire first. At 14 months now, S still goes to bed between 7.30 and 8, our routine with Eric Carle's Brown Bear Brown Bear sacrosanct. As I battle other night woes like over-excitement, exhaustion, teething and separation anxiety, I look ahead and imagine a time when all of it will cease and come up against a brick wall. The joys or parenting are many but when you have your first child past 30, accommodating them gets harder and harder. The constant neediness, the whining, the broken sleep all add up and you reach a point when you say, did I really sign up for this? Maybe I am a selfish mother and maybe someday in the future I will look back and laugh but from where I am at right now the joke's on me and someone somewhere is having the last laugh as I try and stifle a yawn.