Pride Angel Journey | The trouble with evenings

At some point, and I hazard a guess that it was about Week 3, our peaceful sleepy/hungry baby decided that evenings were a bit of a problem. Daytime was for sleeping and feeding; nighttime was for sleeping and feeding. But evenings were tricky old things, and were only really bearable if spent dangled over one of your two mummies' arms, in what is known in the parenting books as the 'Tiger in the Tree' position. The mummy of the proffered arm should be pacing the room and, if the pacing, tiger-carrying tree mummy happens to be 'Non-Milky Mummy' then 'Milky-Mummy' had better stand by for imminent feeding emergencies. Evenings did just seem to do something horrible to the lovely feed/sleep/feed/sleep cycle. And the longer the cycle was disrupted, the tireder our little baby got. Very tired babies cry a lot - but only twice did we resort to the calming effect of the cool nighttime air and pacing up and down the street after midnight carrying in the sling an exhausted Luna who was using her lasts reserves of energy to wail to the stars. And then at a certain point, some time between 10pm and 2am, suddenly she would feed to sleep and the lovely cycle would be back again until the next evening. And then at around nine weeks the evening trouble stopped altogether. The cycle, which albeit now included quite a bit of awake time in the day, would carry on through the evening, and even though bedtime had settled on a rather late 11pm, the time before that could be spent pleasantly - a drink of milk, a cuddle, a burp or two, a bit of nappy business...all very calm and content. So what was it about those evening? The weariness which comes upon one after spending a whole day feeding and sleeping? The threat of impending darkness and all the terrors that come with it - monsters and witches and creatures of the night? The knowledge that this ordinary day, almost over, was unique and will never be lived again? Of course, we will never know. Article: by Lindsey, West Yorkshire 2nd April 2014