Yes, in the words of Faithless, those great sages of 1996, I need to sleep I can’t get no sleep.

The baby, meanwhile, is sleeping like, er, a baby.

I’m not sure why people use that phrase, as “sleeping like a baby” clearly doesn’t mean lying in a crib suspended between two trees in a gentle forest resembling Tellytubby Land, rocking gently while a soft breeze lulls the baby into a peaceful pink-cheeked slumber more profound than that of Sleeping Beauty, but refusing point blank to go to sleep until well past midnight, needing to be rocked by a knackered mother for half an hour thereafter and then waking at two hourly intervals for a bit of boob following at least twenty minutes of squeaking and flailing arms about while Anxious Mother looks on nervously to check Baby has not fallen victim to some terrible accident in the co-sleeper.

That very same Anxious Mother is not being helped to sleep by either of the following (both entirely non-baby related):
a) Classic 1996 dance anthem Insomnia is now stuck in my head.  As pleasant as the memory of those years of GCSEs and trying to get into clubs wearing a sparkly blue bra top and so called “hipster” trousers, neither of which I shall ever be able to wear again, may be, it isn’t conducive to a peaceful night’s sleep.
b) Upon reflection on the poor state of my finances, I decided to ditch the decaffeinated tea I have been drinking for the past year in favour of the caffeinated version, purely because the former only comes in small boxes of sixty or so teabags, thus making it less good value than the larger boxes of so-called “regular” tea.  See how thrifty I am?  See?

Given the number of cups of tea I am prone to sink in a day, combined with my lack of tolerance for what must surely be one of the world’s most addictive sleep-depriving substances after a year of withdrawal, I am now, to use another analogy from the unsurpassable dance music of the nineties, about as wired as Keith Flint from the Prodigy singing Firestarter in a vat of Red Bull whilst slapping his head repeatedly.

AND THE BABY IS SLEEPING.

This can only mean that come tomorrow, yet another attempt to get Piglet into a routine that does not involve going to bed past midnight and sleeping on and off until nearly midday is going to fail, as I will be too knackered to implement it.  And meanwhile, everyone from my NCT class is busy breathing a collective sigh of relief that their babies now sleep virtually through the night, thanks to their rigid routines.  I have not felt like such a failure of a mother since July, when all seven expectant mothers in that class managed to pop out their babies before me, despite mine being due third.  THIRD.

Perhaps this is why their babies all seem to have such superior circadian rhythms, because they have been in the outside world for longer (I hate to say they are “older,” preferring to rate babies’ ages by their conception dates, or failing that their birth weights, to make myself feel better about the being last situation).  Not that I am in any way competitive or anything.  My life in no way resembles that scene in Baby Boom when Diane Keaton overhears the pushy mothers in the park discussing all the classes their babies are doing so that they can get into the best nursery and start on a lifelong course of academic achievement culminating in graduation from an Ivy League university.

Although come to think of it, that’s no guarantee of success.  After all, I went to Oxford and here I am, in a state of such abject poverty that I have to buy caffeinated tea because it works out slightly cheaper than the decaff, and taking detours to Wilkinson’s to buy the toilet roll that’s on special offer.

Anyway, I must go, I have to keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack or something.  I can’t get no sleep.