Where’s the baby?

There is a frightening moment experienced by many new mums at night, in the daytime, in bed, in a chair, it doesn’t seem to matter where you are; when you wake up searching for the baby. I woke up in the second night at home shouting ‘where’s the baby? where’s the baby?’ In your sleep deprived and overloaded mind you have forgotten that you have been out of bed, fed the baby, returned to your bed and gone back to sleep. In your mind you still have the baby with you and have lost it, rolled on it, dropped it over the side of the bed or worse. It is a truly horrifying experience.

It is amplified because you sometimes do have the baby in bed, and fall asleep for a second, or for an hour. Or you are lying there with the baby on your chest until your partner takes the baby away from you so you can continue to sleep. Or you fall asleep with the baby in your arms in a chair.

I had the ‘where’s the baby?’ moment about three times. I fell asleep with the cold packs that were making me feel a lot better resting on my chest. When I woke up I was convinced I had lost the baby only to discover that the cold packs were warm and had slid off. I frantically searched through the bed and bed-clothes for Benedict. I turned the sheets over, and the pillows and then got out and pulled the bed apart. No baby. By the time I had done all that I was wide awake. I realised I was in bed by myself.  The baby was safely asleep in his hammock.

 

Sleeping Baby Lying