So we're trying to encourage Reuben (5 months old, nearly) to sleep better at night. This now involves us taking shifts on the sofa in my trusty old sleeping bag (used daily in India in 2000). I take over baby duty at 4am. R woke up at 4.45, and after taking a small feed fell asleep in my arms. But every time I tried to put him down, he started crying.

It took about an hour of lifting, consoling, laying him down in his cot (but still cuddling him) before I could finally disengage limbs from baby without him waking up.

This kind of thing easily leads to madness. All I can say is that if it wasn't for the mumbling of favourite poems under my breath, I would probably have lost the rag, or at least given up and just let him sleep in my lap.

Here's hoping the effort is worth it.