Never again will I have a proper nights sleep

New parents always mention the lack of sleep and indeed in that first two months I thought I'd seen the worst of it, days merging into nights, waking six times a night or more, Otis thinking 3am would be a nice time to wake for the day. But I thought all of that had gone, and I was fairly happy with his sleep cycle of 8pm until 4am, feed and then sleep until 7am.

But oh no longer. The terror of broken nights and erratic hours has loomed large again but this time it's worse than ever.

Teething started it off. Otis started crying in the middle of the night, not quite waking himself up but waking me, and waking to the sound of a distressed baby is not nice.

Then hunger. He is approaching weening age, at five months, but guidelines recommend waiting until six months. He wants to feed now twice at night.

Finally the terror of a baby's cold has returned. This isn't like an adults cold, a bit nasty then an irritating nose or cough or something (unlike those lemsip adverts which seem to imply sudden death and then thanks to powdered lemon-flavoured paracetemol super-human abilities). No, a babies cold is compounded by the fact a baby can't blow their own nose. This means mucous running down the back of their throat constantly, choking and making them gasp in their sleep and waking them.

In fact the only way I've had any sleep in the past few days is by putting Otis in bed with me and allowing him to breastfeed while asleep. This however isn't ideal, especially as everytime I want to change postion he cries leaving me either stiff as a board or lovingly stroking his cheek until he sleeps again.

I don't really know what I'm doing at the moment. I feel dreamlike. I went to sleep at 7.30pm last night and now at 8.30pm I'm nervous I won't get enough sleep tonight.

I can see why sleep depriation can cause mental illness (thankfully mine hasn't reached these levels, urmm I think) but the amazing thing is also how you can actually survive on so little sleep. Yes those heady days of 10 hours uninterrupted sleep are left behind me now, and with the constant worries about Otis, his health etc, etc, I am starting to see what my mother-in-law was saying.

Most worryingly is I now also think it's going to be true of me. My name's Hannah and I am never again going to have a proper nights sleep.