Things that go grump in the night

Last night Oliver had a mixed night. On one hand he went to sleep fairly easily after his feed and then went 5 hours to the next feed: fantastic! But then after his "middle of the night" feed he wouldn't go back to sleep for a while and grumbled without ever getting too upset. But it meant Hayley was pacifying him (by putting her hand onto his head in the Moses Basket) for about an hour. Then he went another two hours before wanting his next feed.

Now all this detail may sound trivial (to those who weren't kept awake by it at least), but it matters to me for two reasons. Firstly, I am wondering what effect (if any) the use of a dummy is having on his ability to go to sleep without one. Secondly, I was so sleepy when it was time for his "before breakfast" feed (which I normally give him before going to work), that I slept on and Hayley got up to give it to him even though she had already been up at 3am.

The current arrangement is that Hayley tends to do the "middle of the night" feeds during the week when I am at work and then cat nap during the day, whereas I do them at the weekend to give her a rest. But mother nature seems to have programmed Hayley with the need to nurture more than the need to sleep so far and she often gets up for a few minutes when I start to feed him. Perhaps this is Mother Nature's way of ensuring that Dad can't mess things up too much. At the weekend, even my own liberally minded Mum sympathetically uttered the phrase to Hayley "you can't trust them can you" about men handling babies!

Each day is a new experience and there is no counting of chickens when it comes to expecting the good nights to continue as they have done (mostly) to date.