Sherie, you are spot on with it becoming a competition - and it drives me crazy.

I must have the luckiest mothers' group in the world, because every single baby (there are nine of us) with the exception of mine is sleeping through the night - or only waking once for a feed. At the last meeting I sat there while they commented on how lucky "we" were that we had summer babies because wouldn't it suck to be up in the middle of the night during winter? Imagine how that made me feel. It was like sitting around a bunch of rich people talking about how great it was that they made so much money, and wouldn't it suck to be poor. I came home from mothers' group feeling like I had a bad baby. And of course, that just creates a vicious cycle of then feeling like a bad mum because of course I love her to bits and here I am complaining about her, blah blah blah. Anyway, mothers' group is tomorrow and even though I love being able to get out and talk to other mums, I'm seriously considering not going because I don't want to be made to feel unlucky.

I am so bloody sick of the adjective "good" being used to describe babies who sleep through. It's everywhere - the press release of Princess Mary's baby described how good their baby was because she was sleeping through the night. The sunday paper section where people send in photos of their baby always mention that their good baby sleeps through the night. When friends and family ask about Bonnie's sleep, they always ask if she's been "good".

Perhaps I'm being sensitive (which is highly likely due to sleep deprivation) but I really resent the implication that my baby is bad because she wakes frequently throughout the night.

One of the reasons why I love this place is because it makes me feel that my baby is normal.