Page 31 of The Bad Mother's Diary

Wolfgang ended up sinking his big front tooth into her hand. He wrestled the book from her and no one could get it off him.

Althea was very proud.

She said, ‘He’s so confident, isn’t he?’

Wednesday March 11th

Althea phoned today to moan about her sex life. She’s seeing some twenty-year-old guy who lives on a canal boat. But apparently he has ‘no sexual energy’ and can only do it once a night.

She asked me how many times me and Nick did it.

I told her my sex life was non-existent right now.

Daisy sleeps in our bed half the time, and Nick is always getting home late. Truth be told, he doesn’t seem that interested these days. Which suits me fine, because I’m way too tired to do anything in bed other than sleep.

Althea tutted and said, ‘Sex is part of womanhood. He’s depriving you of being a woman.’

But I don’t really care. Maybe it’s because we’ve been together so long. Maybe it’s because I’ve had a baby. I’m sure things will pick up when Daisy’s a bit older.

Thursday March 12th

Read the Ferber controlled-crying book today and realised I could be overfeeding Daisy at night-time. Maybethat’swhy she wakes up so much – because the poor little lamb has too much food in her tummy.

The book says babies need to learn to self-settle. And that parents need to help them self-settle by ignoring them.

Daisy woke at 10pm as usual and cried for nearly an hour.

For the first three minutes, I was strong and serene (I am teaching her to self-settle). Then I started to panic (what if she’sdyingin there?).

Phoned Althea, and she told me I was being very cruel and that Daisy was just expressing herself.

Then I phoned Laura, who told me to take it ten minutes at a time.

After three more minutes I cracked and went in to give her a cuddle.

She howled even more when I left. It actually turned into ear-splitting screams.

So I fed her. And then shestillwouldn’t stop crying.

I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve broken her! Now she’llneverstop crying!’

She did eventually. After half an hour of shushing and rocking. At which point I was way too stressed to sleep.

I kept going over and over the Ferber technique in my head like a mad woman. Then I obsessively googled ‘controlled crying’ and read a load of mums who said it didn’t work. Although plenty more said it worked brilliantly.

I just want to do what’s best. But there are a million different opinions on what ‘best’ is.

Why are there no answers! No instruction manuals! Why are babies so confusing?

Sunday March 15th

Mothering Sunday

Laura did a lovely thing – she booked me a facial in Kensington as a Mother’s Day treat.

I think she guessed Nick would forget. He’s not great with dates. He forgot his own birthday once, so I don’t take it personally.

Nick got all panicky when he realised he’d be looking after Daisy. He said that he didn’t know what he was doing and that Daisy would ‘probably get separation anxiety that will fuck her up in later life’.

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