Bad Bad Freya

There's nothing like sleep deprivation to make one's ethics fly out of the window.

Basically, as I've hinted, Dot's usually wonderful sleeping has been patchy at best the last few weeks. At first I assumed it was being in the UK, but she's gone from sleeping sometimes 10 hours straight to waking first once, then twice, and now three or four times in a nine hour stretch and it's gotten no better since we got home. Aaargh.

I've been resorting to anything to try and get her back off when she wakes. At first I was just using the tried and true, completely eco-friendly boob method. But she'd wake again as soon as I got her down so I'd be up and down like a yoyo to no avail.

So then we started using the buggy - pushing her up and down till she went off and then doing a quick transfer to the hammock once she was well and truly zonked. But not only was that ridiculous, it was only really feasible in Mum and Dad's house which has a hallway twice the size of our entire cottage.

So finally I found myself following the advice of a friend, Sally, to blow the hairdryer to settle her - the white noise, apparently, worked like a charm for her baby Agnes. Although I knew I'd be burning tons of extra electricity, I tried it, telling myself it'd be a one-off and I'd never come to rely on it. Well, that was then. Of course, it worked pretty well the first time, and it's also possible to get her off while lying under the warm duvet instead of huddling over her in the freezing cold so I've found myself plugging that baby in and letting it go on for 5, 10 or more minutes - as long as it takes for the hammock to stop wriggling - several times a night, and during the day too.

And I even found myself the other night, in the W on Lexington (where Dot's hammock was hanging over the shower rail in the bathroom) running the tap until she went back to sleep. This from the woman who gives her husband a hard time for leaving the tap running while he brushes his teeth (apparently that wastes 5 litres per minute - and I was doing this for at least 5 mintues - oh dear).

And I haven't even counted the unneccessary car trips the hubby's taken with her in the back when all else fails.

No wonder sleep deprivation is used as form of torture. Within the space of a few days I've descended into weak-willed hypocrisy and eco-villainy, and who knows how much lower I'll stoop if it doesn't stop soon.

Hopefully tonight will be different and all this will become a distant memory.