Welcome to hell: I was a new mother back in 1982, and rather clueless. I’d had no younger brothers or sisters, and had hardly ever held a baby before. At the time I worked in a library, and

I was a new mother back in 1982, and rather clueless. I’d had no younger brothers or sisters, and had hardly ever held a baby before. At the time I worked in a library, and so had access to lots of books on pregnancy, birth and child care. I read stacks of them earnestly, especially the bit about feeding babies every 4 hours and then putting them back in their cot at night to sleep for another 4 hours. Mum-in-law told me how her second child was like this, and how she even had to wake the baby up after 4 hours to feed her.

Hmm… my reality was somewhat different. Leon only took one ounce of milk at a time before falling asleep, and was then awake half an hour later screaming, with his little fists screwed up in fury, demanding more milk. This went on for weeks, day and night, and Mum (and Dad) were knackered. Sam would go to work an hour early and sleep in the van until 9am. The GP diagnosed colic and prescribed merbentyl syrup, but it didn’t have much effect.

New mums are given so much conflicting advice by older and more experienced members of the family and by other mothers, but in a lot of cases tend towards trying to figure it all out for themselves. However, I was so weary of the screaming and lack of sleep, that I bemoaned my lot to my aunt June when she visited and told her how Leon was not behaving in the way that I’d read in all the well-thumbed baby books on our shelves. Aunt June threw back her head and laughed and said the following words:

“Babies can’t read the books, and so they don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing. Let him scream… it’ll wear him out.”

I decided to take Aunt June’s advice. Letting a baby scream is rather less than delightful, but strangely enough it worked. Leon would scream for a good hour, gobble down an increased amount of milk and then fall asleep, but slowly over time he would sleep for longer. Mum and Dad were nicer to know, and

so was Leon. He did turn out to be hyperactive though, and so that might have had something to do with his inability to sleep for long periods of time. However, all that screaming most likely gave him the inguinal hernia that he had repaired when he was two.

It just goes to show that sometimes it’s best for new mothers to take advice from those who have already been through the absolute hell of being the parent of a furious newborn. By the time Marc came along three years later I was more in control, older and wiser, and baby Marc always slept for 4 hours at a time just like he was supposed to do in the baby books. Mum and Dad couldn’t believe it!