Granny State

An age-old answer to sleepless nights

Iarrive at 7.15am on the dot. Daughter and Son-in-law look exhausted, but Rose is leaping around the sitting room like Peppa Pig on speed.

“She’s been up since 5am,” says her mother, rubbing her eyes. “Before that, it was 11am and 3ish. What can we do, Mum?”

For a minute, I bask in the glory. My daughter is actually asking for my advice. Normally, any suggestions I make are “totally irrelevant” because “nowadays it’s all done differently”. But it seems the age-old problem of How To Get Toddlers To Sleep Through The Night is still as much of an exhausting issue as it was three decades ago.

“How about putting her down later?” I venture.

“Done that. Didn’t make any difference, same goes for controlled crying.”

Then, I hit on it. Why not ask Rose’s extended family for advice? I’m very aware of how lucky we are to have our granddaughter two days a week. If I were them, I might feel rather left out (understatement). This might be a way to include them.

In fact, I could start with Step Great-grandad and new, Younger Foreign Wife who have invited themselves over. Big mistake. “Tsk,” the wife declares, when I outline the sleeping problem over tea: a rather messy affair at Rose’s place where our tiny hostess is throwing eggy soldiers everywhere. “In my country, children go to bed when adults do.”

“But aren’t they tired the next morning?”

She rolls her eyes. “They have siestas like us.”

“No wonder the country’s finances are in such a state,” mutters Newish Husband.

Our guest holds out her arms. “Let me have her for a bit. I will settle her in her cot,” she says.

Daughter and Son-inlaw are horrified. “She doesn’t know you,” they say as one. “It is better that way, I think. She will not play me up.”

I can’t help feeling slightly irritated. How dare she take over like this. I look at Step Greatgrandad for help but he’s nodded off at the table.

Amazingly, Rose doesn’t seem to object to a near stranger putting her down. (Traitor!) Perhaps it’s the lullaby we can hear from the nursery or maybe she’s just shattered after all the egg-lobbing.

“Can you send her round to us?” texts one of the Granny Mafia group who paid £500 for a sleep doctor to sort out her granddaughter. (It worked at first, although the subject has now gone back to her old 3am wake-up).

The following night, Rose is awake again.

“It’s not easy,” agrees First Husband. “In fact, I don’t know how you do it.”

I feel a twinge. If only we’d known back then that it wasn’t our fault. Sleeping problems are just part of bringing them up. But, like so many young parents, we assumed we were doing it wrong. I try to explain this to my daughter, but she’s too tired to take it in.

Not long after that, we receive a “thank you” note from Step Great-grandad in spidery writing. It ends with a PS. “Glad the whisky worked.” What?

“I just dipped Rose’s dummy into my glass before she went up,” he says nonchalantly when I ring. “Always did that to my kids and it worked every time.”

I decide not to share this with my daughter. But a few days later, Rose heads for the wine rack, which is built into our kitchen island. It’s almost as though she is trying to medicate herself.

Newish Husband swoops to stop her. “Hang on – the rack’s empty.”

That’s because I’ve moved the contents to a high shelf. I’ve been saying for ages that it’s dangerous to have bottles within toddler reach. But perhaps it’s not just broken glass we need to avoid.

‘Glad the whisky worked … I just dipped Rose’s dummy into my glass before she went up’