I woke to Harley’s wide eyes at midnight.

“I know its midnight Mum but I’m ready to play” they said.

I had been asleep for just over an hour. I should have gone to bed earlier I lamented dragging my body from the warm spot.

With full belly he pulls from the boob and I gently coax him back into bed with eyes shut. A few grunts and he resumes a peaceful sleep.

1:30 am “Mum I have spent the last ten minutes kicking these blankets off and you go and pull them up again.” I apologise. We return to sleep.

3:30 am “Honest I thought 3:30 was morning time. It’s time to get up right?” No. But yes time for a feed, I concede.

5:30 am (or there abouts): “I could do with a snack. On second thoughts now that your up, don’t worry about it. Yawn”. Grr.

And there it is – the pattern I have been missing. I finally grasp that this is Harley’s routine at the moment. A big sleep from six pm (5-6 hours), a smaller sleep after that (3-4 hours) and tapering off for the last 1-2 hours before morning. So even though to me it feels like every two hours it actually is a pretty good pattern.

We have tried again to delay the big sleep until at least seven hoping for seven-thirty pm. Mum became a night-time ninja, trying every trick in the book to steal a few more wakeful moments. We walked later in the evening, we sneakily pushed back bath time. Dad bounced the chair, sang and talked to the little guy whist cooking dinner. The only thing we achieved was a couple of tired tears at feed-time. The eyes fluttered and each time fell by half past six. I have decided it is not worth it at the moment. Snuggly cuddles half an hour earlier are far nicer.

Harley will adapt his routine and drop or merge a feed when he is ready. In the mean time I just have to learn how best to cope. Staying up writing until eleven is not an option if I want to function the next day. Maybe on ‘home days’ where we have nothing planned except to catch up on sleep but otherwise I think I’ll have to make myself close shop after eight… that’s not such a bad thought. Yawn.