Why do they call it golden sleep; on that stupid nappy advert? It already has a perfectly good name, REM sleep. It has a well established definition and purpose. Why invent a new word for it just because you work in marketing and you assume most of your customers are dumb enough to think REM is a band? Rapid Eye Movement; it’s the outward sign that your brain is making sense of the universe according to itself.
Or maybe it’s not about that at all? Maybe the ‘golden’ is meant to apply not to the child, but to the parent? A child that sleeps for hour after hour is worth its weight in gold.
Once upon a time Araminter would sleep, for ten minutes, then feed, for ten minutes, then sleep again, all night. After only a single night of this, it was clearly unacceptable. Death, despair, and destitution beckoned. The next night rocking and singing was introduced. That’s rocking as a verb, to rock her back and forth, as opposed to rocking out, which, er, I guess is also a verb; never mind. The signing wasn’t rocking; just gentle melodies. That sort of worked, for the others in the house anyway. Lottie would sleep between feeds, and Araminter would sleep in my arms while I swayed gently back and forth, as she would wake the microsecond her back touched a mattress. Did you know your central heating actually does something? A modern house with double glazing and draft excluders and such is noticeably not warm at three in the morning. Daddycool became Daddycold.
Now our lives have been transformed. I’m not tired. She is six weeks old, I’ve been back at work for three weeks, and I’m not tired. I go to bed and get up at roughly the same time I used to, and I’m not tired. Araminter has started sleeping through the night, or at least most of the way through so that a good few hours can be gained before a feed.
How on earth has this been achieved you ask? Have we picked up a Holy Grail while we were in Waitrose, or are we just dosing her up on Ketamine? Tempting, but no; we dose her up on milk. As the evening progresses her feeds become closer together until she’s bursting with milk. It’s a simple idea; we noticed that if she has a good feed then she will always have a nap. Like all of us really; give us a good meal and wrap us up all snug and warm and we’ll all drop off. Ever tried staying awake through the grand prix after too much roast? I don’t think I’ve ever managed it.
From about eight o clock onwards Araminter is presented with an endless succession of breasts and is not allowed to get really hungry between feeds, she just gets topped up. Then the last feed of the day, between ten and eleven is the full super-size me. She always falls asleep after a while, so we pick her up and play with her or change her, whatever to wake her up, and then more milk. Finally when Lottie is empty, or Araminter just won’t wake up anymore we put her to bed.
For all those who already have kids, a bit of boasting. Araminter has managed eight uninterrupted hours for six of the last eight nights. How cool is Daddycool now?
