Sarah Moss: For seven years, I slept four or five hours a night, rarely for longer than an hour at a time

A friend has a new baby. This no longer happens to me often. I started early so my sons are young adults and most of my friends’ kids are at least well into primary school. The torturous debates about controlled crying and co-sleeping, bottle and breast, spoon-feeding and baby-led weaning, seem almost quaint, though at the same time the vicious judgment of mothers’ decisions and compromises never quite fades.

My friend is suffering, as new mothers do, even more than 20 years ago, from too much advice. The baby’s needs are obvious and the same across time and the world: love, milk, warmth, nappies. But how to meet those needs consistently, hour after hour, is far from obvious. When the baby cries, try milk. It won’t make things worse, e...
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