Good night, sweet prince, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest...

Alex has never been a tremendous sleeper. He has only slept through the night possibly three times in the last twelve months. Compared to other babies, though, I wouldn't consider him a problem sleeper. Until recently.

Up until three weeks ago, I felt like we had hit our stride. Alex was having two good naps during the day, settling himself to sleep at night at about seven pm, waking at eleven for a quick breastfeed, and then sleeping through until about seven am. It was fantastic. And then, all of a sudden, he stopped settling himself to sleep at night. He has been waking and refusing to go back to sleep for hours on end. Waking up at four-thirty or five am, and staying awake.

It's not just waking though. When he wakes, he screams hysterically. After he is picked up, he will generally fall asleep, but will wake up and resume screaming as soon as he is returned to his cot. We have also developed the technique of gently tickling or stroking his tummy or back and singing Christmas carols. This sometimes works, but more often than not, he wakes as soon as you leave the room.

I can only hope this is a phase. A phase that disappears very, very soon.

There is nothing worse than having your child scream and cry and refuse to sleep, and having no solution to deal with the situation. In today's society, we're used to the "quick fix". There is, however, no magic solution to your baby not sleeping properly. There is no switch you can flick. And quite often, when you do find something that works, within a week, it stops working and you have to find something new.

It's frustrating, exhausting, debilitating. It is incredibly confronting to be in your child's room at two in the morning, and fighting the temptation to throw them out the window. Anyone who has spent hours, sleep deprived, with a baby who just won't stop crying, and who won't sleep, could tell you that they begin to understand how someone could shake a baby. Sometimes you just need to put your baby down screaming, leave the room, get a drink, and give yourself a break before you go back.

A lot of mothers, particularly those who are successful in their career, find the sleep issue difficult. When they're used to being able to control what happens in their world, succeeding at everything they try, and then all of a sudden, this little person doesn't do "what they're supposed to". This can be really hard to deal with for some mums. And dads. It's almost as if you've failed.

I remember joking with Kel a few weeks ago that I needed to return my little one. His sleep function is faulty. Surely there's some kind of warranty for defects?

All I can take from this, though, is that it's a reminder that this little baby is a little person, and they will do what they want to do, and sleep when they want to sleep, and you cannot control that. It's a reminder of how amazing it is that not that long ago, this little individual was nothing more than biology, and now they have their own personality.

There has to be some positive that comes from sleep deprivation...

Santa Claus is coming to town

[standing outside a jewellers discussing what to buy Chandler's girlfriend for her birthday]
Chandler: I want to get her something serious.
Joey: You want to get her something serious, get her one of those.. ah.. barium enemas. Those are dead serious, and you know she'll never get one for herself.
Chandler: Look, I'm going in here and you don't buy me anything ever.

It's almost Christmas time! It's Alex's first Christmas, although he did score a few presents in utero last year. We went to get Alex's picture taken with Santa last weekend, which involved waiting in line for an hour and a half for the following result.

It's so much more fun having Christmas with children around. I always felt when we were growing up that Christmas just wasn't as fun without my younger cousins around, showing us what Santa brought for them, and just generally bringing the joy that children do when they're excited and all hepped up on sugar.

While we are yet to put up the Christmas tree this year, I am getting much more in the spirit than I have in the last few years. We're heading out to the vineyards for their Carols in the Gardens this weekend, and I do have Alex's Santa outfit ready to go. I love taking Alex through the shopping centres and showing him all of the lights, and Santas, and the general Christmas-a-rama.

It does bring to mind, however, how we're going to treat the "Santa" going forward. John is all for being up-front and telling him that Santa isn't real. I can see his point, but on the other side, Santa is such a fun part of being a child. I had two big sisters, so I don't think I ever really believed Santa was real, but I still pretended I did. I wrote the letter to the North Pole, we left out the milk & cookies, and had a pillow-case full of presents next to my bed in the morning. In fact, Santa still left presents next to my bed until I was about 19 or 20, and even after that, he was polite enough to leave some under the Christmas tree.

I have read research that says the children whose parents keep up the Santa pretence often feel a sense of disillusionment and betrayal when they eventually find out. It also brings to mind an un-named, incredibly innocent and somewhat precious sister-in-law who found her parents putting her Santa presents out when she was young, so they told her that Santa had in fact died, so they were taking over his role for her. She was devastated, but never actually discovered Santa wasn't real.

Fast forward to her moving to Australia and car-pooling to work with her brother-in-law, my darling husband, who, after hearing her sadness that Santa died, proceeded to tell her that Santa had not died, he just didn't go to Korea because they don't keep the Sabbath holy. My sweet sister-in-law didn't pick up on John's sarcasm, and was so excited about Santa being real, that when she got home she rang her Mum in Korea to tell her how excited she was, and how she couldn't wait to have children so Santa would bring presents, especially now her English was good enough that she could speak to Santa when she met him. No one had to heart to tell her the truth for such a long time. There's nothing worse than finding out about Santa when you're 23.

So I'm sure there's a balance somewhere in between letting your children be children, but not letting them feel betrayed at the lies when they discover the truth. I'm not sure what we'll tell Alex, but we have a few years before he really "gets" Santa anyway, so I guess we'll work out a story before then.