My 14-week-old baby Mabel is sleeping through the night. Not every night, but most nights she goes to bed in her moses basket at around 9pm and wakes at about 6am the next day.
Two things will happen, now that I have said that out loud: Mabel will wake up every five minutes tonight - and almost every woman with a new baby will hate me.
For I have broken the motherhood code of silence. The tacit agreement which decrees that even if you want to shout from the rooftops about getting nearly seven unbroken hours of sleep a night you shall not, in deference to the majority of parents who are not. It’s just not done, is it?
But before you make a voodoo doll of me (still in my maternity jeans) to stick pins in, I must point out that this sleep is a luxury we have never had before.
None of the other three ever slept through the night. The youngest was waking twice a night until he was three (he’s four now). The first one, aged nine, needed only four hours’ sleep and Mr C and I used to take it in turns wandering round the house or the streets with her after she’d woken at 4.30am (she wakes at 6.30am these days).
Gracie-in-the-middle had colic. She would howl all night, her little tummy tight with the pain of it.
We lived in a fug of desperate exhaustion for nearly a year, as she was born 16 months after the first one.
I remember hallucinating with tiredness, the kitchen floor would shift from side to side in front of me and if I saw anyone in bed on television, I would stare at the screen with lust, longing to feel the pillows against my face.
I was once so tired after a long day at work on four hours’ broken sleep that I was physically sick. But we survived. No one died. And I am not complaining - if you have babies, you expect this.
Thus a sleeping Candy baby is a miracle, which is why I had to tell you about it.
I am, of course, tempting fate by mentioning our guilty secret, but I am so surprised by Mabel’s nocturnal non-activity that I feel like going to confession (even though I’m not religious) or accosting strangers in the street with news of it.
I wish I could offer up a secret for all of you devouring every word related to the subject of sleep, but I can’t. There is no special trick; I’m not the baby whisperer.
We haven’t worked out a complicated formula on a huge blackboard in the manner of Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, eliminating all the things we did previously to arrive at a scientific conclusion that makes babies sleep through the night. Sorry all, but it’s probably just luck. Bummer, as my teenage goddaughter would say.
I used to hate those women who’d look at my scary hair, huge eye bags and buttons done up wrong, then calmly say: “Have you tried putting her in a routine? Mine sleeps from 8pm to 7am under the ‘smughausen’ rules (or whatever new thing was they were reading).”
I wanted to grab them by the throat and yell: “Listen lady, I have tried it all. Everything you have read about, every old wives’ tale, every stranger’s ridiculous piece of advice. I’m calling a white witch next, because nothing has worked.”
Okay, Okay, I can hear those of you on your knees with tiredness so bad you’ve forgotten your own surname shouting: “Quit the column drivel, woman. You must have done something to Baby Mabel to make her sleep.”
Really, I’ve got nothing for you.
Oh all right, I do have one thing - but we’ll have to hide behind a bush like criminals in order to share this.
And if you tell anyone else, I will have to kill you.
Just remember me when you see my name on the so-called Breastapo’s hit list. Look away now, anyone who is maternally squeamish.
I have started to mix formula feeds with breastfeeds.
I did this on the advice of a health visitor concerned about Mabel’s weight (she’s not a chubbo) and the fact it was taking all night to feed her myself.
So she now gets two, sometimes three, bottles of formula each day.
The day I started this she slept through and has done ever since.
Most likely, this is a coincidence. And, of course, it may all change tomorrow; babies are notoriously unpredictable.
But it makes you think. With my other newborns I was advised against this, breast is best being the mantra.
But several years of parenting later and the professionals are less hardline and I’m more relaxed.
I am, after all, a formula baby myself. - Daily Mail
* LORRAINE CANDY is editor-in-chief at Elle Magazine.