Ok I admit defeat. I was hoping to write a nice erudite piece about the arrival of my third child, full of witty insight and heartfelt musings. But it’s too bloody hectic for that and you’ll be lucky if I make it to the end of this sentence. So, I hope you can take these dispatches from week six of baby Rosa in the spirit in which they are written, which is total confusion.

Recent headlines are as follows. Today I wee’d on the toilet lid because Olly had closed it. I was so desperate and Rosa was yelling so loud I didn’t bother to check if it was up. Last Tuesday I took the children to MacDonald’s which was great fun and extremely chaotic. I loaded up the car and paused for a moment before starting it, a little proud of myself for such a successful trip out, when I noticed that Rosa May was still in the pram outside the car. And on a personal confidence note, someone asked me when the baby was due whilst I was out shopping the other day, so I had to explain that I was just fat after the baby, which made me feel great.

On the health front, in the past six weeks we have had two stays in hospital for Rosa; I’ve had an infection in my scar, an infection in my uterus and this week I got mastitis. Rosa went back into hospital when she was less than a week old, and then at two weeks she was back in again. Both times she was discharged with a clean bill of health, and we’re pleased to say she’s coming on in leaps and bounds. I have been rattling a little, owing to the amount of pills I’ve had to down, and I am still in shock at how truly awful mastitis is. I had assumed it was like a bad case of sore nipples, I had no idea how truly medieval it was in its extent and how rapid the onset of it is. My sympathies to all of you out there who’ve had it.

The recent hot weather has played havoc with Rosa May and she has done some first-class crying. At first this was just your average baby squawking but she has done something that the others didn’t do at this age, which is she sheds tears. These little drops of baby heartache are accompanied by the saddest sobbing I’ve ever heard. Her tiny mouth droops right down in a cartoon like pout and then she cries like it is the end of the world. I am hopeless when my children cry and, despite vowing to myself not to give in to them, when any of them cry I will do anything to stop it. Actually I think it’s the root of many of my problems with them now, Billie doesn’t sleep because I never left her in the cot to cry, and Olly doesn’t accept no for an answer because he can turn me round any time with those big, round, wet eyes.

I’ve always marvelled at the mums around me who have managed to remain firm in the face of their children’s aural outpourings. Controlled crying has so much more to do with the control the parents have to exert over themselves than the crying the baby does. I remember when Olly was a tiny baby, a visitor instructed me (that’s not necessarily true, she probably ‘suggested’, but it felt like an instruction) to leave him in his cot to cry in order to try and get him to sleep. I sat downstairs for what was a good two minutes, twitching and fretting, and completely hating the woman humming out in the kitchen as she made me a restorative cup of tea, until I could stand it no more. I rushed upstairs and scooped my lachrymose love up in my arms and clutched him to me as if he’d been away a week. Of course, he stopped crying, and I felt relief at that, and certainty that her methodology was something I could never countenance. Subsequently I would cringe whenever I heard mums talk about their successes with controlled crying, wondering how they could be so venal to someone they purported to love. One by one, my parenting colleagues began to claw back their lives, or at least some sleep, whilst I remained alone on my vigil, standing to attention the moment the clarion call sounded from my child’s lips. My mum would tell me of how crying was good for the baby as it exercised their lungs (well it certainly gave my heartstrings a good workout) and how she used to let me cry and it never did me any harm?!!!?

When I was pregnant with Bill, those around me who could point to their soundly sleeping tots, ‘instructed’ me to let Billie cry when the time came. Of course I didn’t take a blind bit of notice and the sounds of her whimpers, three and half years later still result in one or other of us stumbling into her room no matter the hour.

And now here is Rosa, who surprised us all today with the biggest of beaming smiles, no sign at all of a tear. Yet I know that a time will come when I will have to face the choice of whether to cuddle or cry yet again. I know there are plenty of arguments against the way I’ve behaved with my kids but perhaps I’ll be able to justify my lack of courage by declaring myself an emotional ecologist - conserving the increasingly precious commodity of water by stopping her tears. I know I’ll probably be saving them up for a rainy day; God only knows I’ve had plenty of storms with the other two, but it’s a chance I think I’m going to take. Umbrella anyone?

Juliet Jones lives in domestic chaos with husband Steve, son Oliver (aged 4) and daughters Billie (aged 3) and Rosa (aged nearly three weeks!) in Hertfordshire.

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