Leap leap means no sleep sleep.

I nicked that phrase from my Twitter friend @Nurse_Ally, because it pretty much describes what developmental leaps / Wonder Weeks are like for babies. I caved last night and googled ‘Wonder Week sequences’, which is the leap we’re in, apparently, and found forum after forum of desperate mums saying, ‘This is the worst leap of all’ and ‘Anyone want a 10-month old baby? Going cheap’.

Though it’s not all bad – Charlie giggles a LOT more, eats for Australia and is cruising around furniture like a champ – my good little sleeper is gone. I don’t know what happens to their little brains, but there ain’t no off switch. Here is a day in the life of Charlie’s sleep right now. I know I won’t remember it in a month so writing it down means I can come back and laugh and laugh when he goes back to being the adorable little cherub I know he is deep down.

5am. Charlie is in our bed and waking up. He does this by taking his dummy out and cooing in my ear- ‘Oooh! Ahhhh! La! La!’. We try to ignore him or whisper ‘Sleepytime, Boo-Boo’ until he raises the volume to peak level.

6.30am. Charlie cracks the shits big time and demands one of us get his bottle immediately. Whoever is less delirious stumbles off to the kitchen.

7.20am. We are up. He’s eating toast, watching his shows and yanking all the books out of his library with great gusto. Depending on whose turn it is, one parent is still in bed. Sometimes if it’s been a really crap night, Mummy refuses to get out of bed, forcing Daddy to take over regardless of whose turn it is.

9am. Charlie goes back to bed for about an hour and instantly goes to sleep. Only time of day this occurs.

12 noon. Charlie is rubbing eyes, yawning, whinging, butting his head against me, trying to climb my leg and looking generally exhausted. We attempt a nap. The second I try to lie him down he is instantly awake, sitting up and doing upper body dance moves (and invariably falling over because he is so roly poly). He then laughs hysterically at himself making it near impossible for mummy to remain stern and stifle a grin, rendering the whole napping process a complete waste of time.

1pm. Post lunch, more rubbing of eyes etc etc. We attempt a nap again. More misbehaviour, along with lots of frowning and intense scrutiny of his blankie, the wall, the silver latch on his cot. His Mi5 style investigation ends by taking his dummy out and having a serious discussion with it.

3pm. HOW can this kid still be awake? That’s like, bordering on 5 hours.

4pm. Mr Chick, who has taken Charlie out in the pram, sends me a photo of him asleep. We are in for the night from hell. I contemplate running away from home.

6.30pm. We’ve done dinner, we’ve done the bath, we’ve done the Night Garden episode, we’ve done the bot-bot, he’s sleepy, very very sleeeeeppppy, eyes closing, it’s dark, he’s snuggled up against me… when POW. He’s up. Dancing. Practicing standing. Squealing and giggling and generally being a right pork chop. I give up. He comes out and watches The Project.

7pm. We try to put him back to bed.

7.30pm. He comes out to watch Masterchef.

8.30pm. He’s down. I repeat, the kid is down.

10pm. He’s lost his dummy and through the monitor looks around for it like he’s on an archeological dig. One of us goes in to retreive it for him.

Midnight. He wakes up, realises we are going to bed and that simply won’t do. He has to sleep in between us. No arguments.

1am. I have origamied myself around a chubby, wriggly baby that decides he wants to sleep on the pillow (10 minutes) in between two pillows (5 minutes), parallel to the pillows (2 mins), with his head on my chest (30 seconds), in the crook of my arm (10 minutes), on his tummy (20 minutes), on his back (8 minutes), on his back with his legs around mummy’s neck because she gave up and tried to get away and sleep against the wall (5 minutes), and so on and so on and so on.

3am. I try to reason with him. ‘Charlie, mummy is tired. So tired. Mummy has had enough. Why won’t you go to sleep? If you don’t go to sleep, Mummy will be very cross.’ His response: Shaking his head from side to side fast, while hysterically giggling. Or, pretending he is a truck, rocking on all fours and making broom broom noises.

4am. Somehow he’s conked out. I decide to just move him slightly so I can have a bit more than just a 1cm square of the pillow and… he starts wailing like there’s no tomorrow. Wail wail wail wail wail. Mummy and daddy have a relatively sane and courteous discussion about whether he’s teething and needs Panadol.

4.05am. He gets Panadol.

4.30am. He’s asleep again after much rocking, patting, ‘shhh, shh’ing etc.

5am. He’s pulling out his dummy and singing in our ear, ‘Lalalala! Oooh! Ahhhh!’ Aaaand… our day begins.

Good times, people. Here’s hoping this leap is over soon. I’m almost scared to check how long we have left on the Wonder Week app.