The Hardest Part of Motherhood....

.... in my opinion.... is the lack of sleep and the early mornings!

I'm a night owl....

Cameron slept through the night from around 3 months, until around 4 months....

That was it. One glorious month of nights where I wasn't woken up every few hours. I know not all babies are like this, and not all mums are as unlucky, but I have been. Yes, it could be partly my fault. I make no secret of the fact that Cameron sleeps with me, and not in his cot. Most of the time I stay over my mum's at the moment so I can get my dissertation finished anyway, so it seemed silly to enforce the cot on him when we aren't with it a lot of nights.

On top of this, he doesn't have a set routine (no routine, I hear you gasp?!) I know, worst motherhood crime ever, right? Wrong. Cameron sleeps when he needs to. Of course if he is still up and crawling around at ten pm I will try and get him to sleep, but it makes a lot more sense to let him play quietly rather than wrestling him to sleep when he clearly isn't ready. When he is a little older and can understand the concept of sleep and bedtime properly, things will change, but for now, we are doing what works for us.

This does, however, pose a problem for me. Along with not sleeping through, and often having a late bedtime, Cameron seems capable of going without barely any sleep at night and will be up and ready to go at around 6 or 7am each morning. This would be ok... if it weren't for the fact that I go to sleep, on average, at around 2am. Meaning that for the last 6 months I have been living on 5 hours sleep a night.

Even if I hadn't of been doing my dissertation/uni assignments/revision up until this time at night, I would still find it hard to settle down and sleep before midnight. The truth is, I am a night owl... and being a night owl with a baby does not mix, trust me.

Simpler times.... back when I could sleep when I wanted (I was a few weeks pregnant but didn't know!)

So, my advice to people wanting to have babies, or those about to become mothers themselves, isn't to watch out for smelly nappies or pain when you breastfeed, or even about huge cost of having a baby; it is to really savour being able to get a good nights sleep. Because once you have a baby, you won't remember what that means!!