My chirpy happiness has evaporated. We have been trying hard to get GM into a routine, but in short, despite getting 5 good feeds during the day she rarely sleeps at night for longer than 2 hour stretches and it is beginning to take its toll. I am starting to wonder how I long I can carry on breastfeeding.

She is putting on weight, so I know I am producing enough milk, but I am at a real loss as to why she won't sleep very long. I am pretty certain that it's hunger waking her up, because the dummy just seems to upset her more, and to be honest I don't feel like persevering with it much as I know the breast is guarenteed to at least calm her down and then I can go back to bed. Each feed takes a good half hour, much of which is spent with me tickling her and taking layers of clothing off to encourage her to feed. I am trying to get in the habit of expressing a bottle in the mornings to top her up with at night, but I don't have much milk then as I've spent half the night feeding. This makes me feel very stressed, which doesn't help the milk supply either. So I've started on the fennel tea, which the Swiss are very keen on. (I got given a thermos of it every day I was in hospital.) As well as "promoting digestion" and "relieving colic" - they give colicy babies bottles of it - it's meant to stimulate the production of prolactin, the breastmilk hormone. I've been drinking it by the bucketload, it tastes filthy and I can't say I've (yet) been convinced by the results.

I am wondering whether to give her a bottle of formula at night, just to get her to sleep at bit more, but I don't know if that means I'll produce less milk and then I'll have no choice but to stop breastfeeding altogether. Or maybe I should start giving her fennel tea? She is quite gassy, which might be making her uncomfortable and waking her up. But the thought of boiling up tea in the middle of the night doesn't exactly do it for me, either.

Another concern is the neighbours. We live above the concierge whose ears can pick up frequencies usually only registered by dogs and bats, and have been told off so many times about noise ("Madame, on Sunday we were disturbed by a tapping sound") that having a baby whose screams could startle the deaf and wake the dead must be his worst nightmare. I suspect as much, after I met his daughter on the stairs and apologised to her about the disturbed nights: "Yes, thank you" she said, when written all over her face was "you and your screaming children are making my life hell." And I need to keep the concierge onside, because his wife is the Guardian of the (communal) Washing Machine and she has been very generous about how often we use it.

On the up side, the GM is so sweet, her sister is being totally adorable, and R took both of them to the shops this morning just so I could lie in bed and stare.