3 Hours.

That's how much sleep I've had each night for the last four nights.

It's hard when your child just won't sleep. When Grayson was born it felt like everyone else's babies were settling into a routine apart from him. He still wanted feeding every 2-4 hours right up until he was eating 3 full meals and snacks at 10 months.

People would say to me "Have you tried just putting him down?" as if it was some sort of magical cure for a hungry, refluxy, screaming baby. We tried milk thickeners for his reflux, comfort milk and hungry baby milk alongside the breast milk as I was becoming paranoid that I wasn't providing enough fat to keep him full, it took a trip to A&E to get him prescribed with Ranitidine. It took the edge off for a few days. I became sick of people telling me that he would grow out of it, that I should let him cry it out and then the disapproving looks when I would try to explain that if he cried for too long he would violently throw up all over himself, sometimes choking on it.

I felt judged all the time.

I was tired from basically being  a walking boob. I'd be up during his worst periods 9 times a night. or just all night, because there wouldn't be any point in trying to sleep in between. I tried giving him some bottles at night to make it easier to put him down but I found myself falling asleep and dropping the bottle, startling myself and him awake. It was scary.

We tried white noise and a Sleepyhead, combined they gave us a little extra time each night. Once he started eating large meals he went to only waking twice a night. He would still neck a full bottle each wake up. Yet he's never been a chubby baby. It baffles me.

By 13 months he had finally started sleeping through the night regularly. I haven't yet dropped the bottles like the Health Visitor suggests. I just can't. He's 15 months old today and if we went out to eat he would easily wolf down an entire children's meal portion to himself, he usually eats two slices of toast and fruit for breakfast or a larger bowl of porridge than I would eat, he'll have lunch and dinner with a pudding, and healthy snacks in-between. So if drinking a bottle of milk helps get him down for his nap and sleep at night then I'm all over it. I just can't go back to being that zombie again.

This week has been hard, he's been up from 12am -3/4am for 4 nights in a row. Nothing will settle him. It's amazing how hard it becomes to function so quickly. Walking the dog in the morning goes from being a chance to get out to seeming like an impossible task involving far too much to get ready, carrying Grayson on my back feels like I'm being pulled into the ground with every step. I stop eating properly because after preparing him fresh food I just can't be bothered to do my own, so I drink my cold coffee and listen to him whinge and pray that the nap will last two full hours.

And then I'll spend that nap feeling guilty that I wanted rid of him but also dreading when he wakes up. 

It's just really not easy, so to any mum that's currently in the same position, whether your baby is 3 weeks, 3 months or 13 months, it might not always get better fast, but somehow you'll cope, and in the future you'll wonder how! And to any mother whose child does sleep, that's great, but please don't pass on condescending advice, if it was really as easy as putting the baby down, using a dummy or a warm bath, we'd all have amazing sleepers by now! Just agree with us that it's a bit shit and pass us the coffee because we bloody well need it!