Sleep deprivation

I've got a new bag. As fashion is all about reinventing the 90s at the moment, I'm rocking a bum bag. 

Yep, I'm so on trend, people can't take their eyes off it. I wear it all the time. It's useful for keeping things (mainly food) in. But because I'm such a fashionista - hell, sometimes I go mad and shop at Gap when the White Company and Boden don't have anything matronly, voluminous and low-cut enough for breastfeeding - I'm doing it with an ironic twist. I wear it under my clothes.

That's right. Under my lovely, drapey, jersey maxidresses can clearly be seen my bum bag, hanging off my waist, low over my bikini line. It's like a gentle loop of thick rope. 

But of course, I didn't actually buy it. I didn't even ask for it. It's not a real bag - it's my belly. 

Forget saddlebags, bingo wings and muffin tops. After you've had a baby, for a while it's all about the bum bag. And it's very difficult to disguise. Today I wore a pair of spanx-type shorts to try and smooth it out (added bonus - stopped my thunder thighs chafing together in the heat) but I'm not sure they did much good. If anything, they made me look mildly pregnant again because they sort of redistributed and vacuum packed the excess flesh over the whole tummy area, in a tight but wide mound.

The trouble is, anyone who knows you've recently had a baby understands its presence, but passers by in the street I can tell are judging me very harshly. If I'm out without the baby, I feel I need a version of the 'Baby on board' badge to explain. Or a couple of glow sticks, so I might just pass myself off as a hip, bum-bag-wearing clubber on the way home from an all-nighter.

Sometimes, after a testing night shift with Felix, I do feel like I've been clubbing. You're so exhausted, you're almost tripping with tiredness. You feel quite 'other worldly', as my friend Fiona so accurately put it the other day.

Sleep deprivation colours everything. It makes you forget things, move slowly and be vile to your nearest and dearest. You're trapped in a slow-motion horror film. You crave sleep, every minute of the day. Your body sort of quietly buzzes with the deficiency.

Even worse, when your other half is similarly short of shut-eye, you get horribly competitive about who is tireder. Woe betide the spouse who dares to complain of feeling weary if they had a whole hour or two more sleep than you last night. Or lets slip a tactless comment like "I don't understand why you're so tired - you slept through the night last Friday!".

But in the graveyard hours, when I'm burping Felix after a feed or cuddling him after a chilly nappy change, I sometimes fast forward in my head to him being 19. I imagine myself looking at my big, strapping son, who doesn't really need me any more, and think that I would sacrifice all the sleep I have for just one more hour of him sleeping on my chest as a small delicious baby like this.

Because having a healthy, happy baby is a blessing, and I know that we are incredibly lucky to have two. Some great friends of ours had a terribly traumatic time when their son was born almost three years ago. Becky, Felix's godmother, wrote about it so eloquently that I bet you can't read this article without welling up.

Thankfully, their story has a happy ending. But those early days when their beautiful boy was desperately ill were awful for them. So they have never forgotten the care and support they received from the Winnicott Foundation, which supports the neo-natal units at St Mary's and Queen Charlotte's hospitals. 

Therefore Lardy is undertaking an epic bike ride to Paris on Wednesday to raise money for this charity. You can read more about it and see how blond Arthur has become here. I wonder if Lardy will be wearing a bum bag while he's cycling.