Sleep Deprivation = Taylor Swift poems. Four month sleep regression is very real.

Four month sleep regression. If you know, you know. It was the worst month of having a child (so far...our toddler is now two and pottery training looms...). Our little guy started out an ok sleeper, and when we got to three months, we thought we'd cracked it. And then there came the week that no one slept. So instead of sleeping, I spent midnight feeds writing poems to Taylor Swift tracks.

I'd written poetry and things fairly regularly in my teens and early twenties, but I'd gradually gotten out of the habit. I got back into it when I found out I was pregnant. I found it such a helpful tool to process the hormonal marathon that is growing a human and then getting that human out of you. Writing things like this poem kept me sane in the post-natal craziness too.

Having recently had a lot of friends having their first child, I sent this around to them in solidarity. I read it out to one of my best friends a few weeks ago who's still in the trenches of the fourth trimester. Her response - "I feel seen!" If you're going through something similar, I hope you feel the same. Or if you want to know what it feels like to be a sleep - deprived, hormonal mess of a Mum at 2am, this is for you.

*To the tune of "Karma" by Taylor Swift

Your sleep quit, for the hell of it

No amount of rocking seems to stop it

You’re terrified to go down

‘Cause in the cot you’ve clearly stopped

Liking to have slept for long enough

Let’s cry for one more round

And I feed and I feed to try to get you to sleep

And you decide to scream and scream

Cause regression is my worst friend

Regression is a sod

Regression is just out to ruin my weekends

Regression can kiss my a**

Aren’t you glad you chose to ask

Regression is funny, oh wait it’s not

Stabs me in the back because it hates me

Screaming like a crazy banshee hag

Regression just vibes like that

Baby boy, king of sleep

At least that’s what I thought at 13 weeks

Oh how the tide turned around

From a mum who thought she’d won

The lottery of babies who slept through at 3 months

Guess karma had other plans

And I rock and I rock to get you to shut up

And you decide that you’d rather not

[Repeat chorus for 45 minutes because that’s how much sleep I got last night]

Written at 2.43am.