DADDY SAYS RELAX

I go one good day with Charlotte and then start questioning everything - is she feeding enough, sleeping enough, too hot, too cold???

Last night was very warm, and despite the fact she'd been asleep for a good couple of hours and was in the same number of layers as the previous warm night, I panicked that she was too hot. So we stripped her out of her 1 tog sleeping bag while managing to keep her asleep. But then she fed really fussily at 1am, so I thought she was still too hot and took off her sleepsuit. It took a couple more feeds, a change of nappy and fretting over whether she was now too cold in just a vest and sleeping bag to get her back to sleep. I know it was all my fault as I'd fussed and fussed over her and woke her totally up, but it meant she didn't go back down until after 3am.

Why I didn't just stick with what we'd done the night before which worked perfectly, I don't know. But a vest, sleepsuit, sleeping bag and sheet (to keep her arms swaddled) seemed excessive in 24 degree heat.

Her Dad did the morning feed the next morning with expressed milk (slowly managing to get that back on track) to give me a bit of a lie-in. But I can never relax and only managed about half an hour's extra sleep. I still worry whether she's getting enough food from me, despite her obvious happiness and alertness and (mostly) good nighttime sleeping. I guess I've just got that total 'new mum neurosis' and - as my OH keeps telling me over and over - I've got to learn to relax; she's a baby - not yet three months old - and she'll do what she wants.