A dark hour.

Selfie taken at what was probably the high point of the night,,,

The downside of trying to be a gentle parent is that there isn't much left to fall back onto when that fails.  Actually, there is but it comes with a hefty dose of guilt attached.

The jet-lag we, and especially Hugo, are experiencing has been testing to put it mildly. In simple terms, we have barely slept since we got home, now almost a week ago.

The nights start well enough but quickly turn sour when Hugo wakes up at 11, 12 or 1am and can not be put back to sleep no matter what we try.

We have patiently sat with him until he seems sleepy again, patted him, fed him, rocked him and ultimately stuck him in his cot, shut the door and waited... waited... waited... all of it to a soundtrack of furious wailing.

Last night, we reached our limit. Hugo woke as soon as we tried to get to bed, was awake despite our best efforts until 2:30am, only to wake up again one short hour later. Chris went in quickly to try and pat him back to sleep. More screaming. I tried to feed him. Slapping, kicking, screaming. Eventually, feeling defeated and deflated, I put him in his cot, left the room and went back to bed. It was almost 5am.

I even closed the doors so we wouldn't hear him as loudly. My plan was very simply to fall asleep while he sorted himself out. Of course, I couldn't fall back asleep, my whole body was tense and my ears were pricked up, but he did sort himself out. Slowly, and eventually, no more noise. He then slept until 7:30am.

I didn't enjoy it but I just didn't have the strength, mental or physical for anything else. As I was listening to his screams in the dark, I knew that had I stayed in the room, I would have screamed back. I was on the edge, I was in what felt like one of our darkest parenting hours.

Please jet-lag, leave us alone.