Is the baby sleeping through the night? Everyone wants to know. Relatives, neighbors, perfect strangers at the airport, all have a seemingly boundless interest in how your little bundle passes the wee hours. Be careful: this is a trick question. Answer in the affirmative and prepare to be congratulated, not just for your considerable skill as a parent, but also for the obvious genetic superiority of your baby. Be so foolish as to say no, not yet, not sleeping all the way through, and get ready for a barrage of advice and maybe even a lecture. Our daughter doesn't sleep through the night yet, and at a robust thirteen weeks of age, she certainly ought to be according to the very pleasant lady I met at Target. I meekly suggested that breast-fed babies need to eat more frequently, and that Olivia did sleep for up to six hours at a stretch, which I thought was a lot for someone so tiny. The pleasant lady pleasantly ignored that, telling me that I needed to stuff the baby full of cereal just before putting her in her crib at night. Oh, I said, but she sleeps with us and I think it's too soon for solid food and -- at this point I was interrupted. Sleeps with you? She sleeps in your bed with you? Not quite so pleasant any longer, the lady proceeded to give me a real talking-to. As she went on and on about the evils of co-sleeping, I had a revelation: I haven't opened any of my parenting books in weeks. I've been following my own instincts -- instincts I wasn't sure I had. One of those instincts is to keep the baby close by at night. She's not ready to be on her own in the world; it's too lonely and scary. She belongs with us, and all of us curl up together at bedtime, making our own little tribe. I used to think that I'd never sleep with a baby for fear of rolling over and crushing it. It turns out that I sleep better knowing that we're right there if she needs us. And although she wakes up once or twice to nurse, she's never cried or kept us awake in the night, so we must be doing something right. I went from assuming that my baby would always sleep in her own bed to arguing with strangers in discount stores over the virtues of having her sleep in mine. I had a lot of ideas about motherhood but I didn't know that I would feel this way.

How often does she eat? That's a question every bit as loaded as any diaper you'll have to change. It doesn't matter what you answer, since every answer is wrong. I try to keep it easy and pretty much feed her when she's hungry, which works out to every two or three hours. Elegantly simple as this strategy is, I've gotten untold grief for it. One acquaintance flatly told me that I was nuts to have a baby "glued" to me around the clock. Another has given me dire warnings about what happens when babies are fed on demand and not according to a schedule. (Confusing, since I myself routinely eat on demand when hungry and have so far suffered no ill effects.) A woman I met on an afternoon walk cheerfully informed me that my milk was nutritionally inadequate and that I owed it to my daughter to get her some Similac and quickly. All of this conflicting advice and information would be troublesome if I bothered to listen to any of it. I don't. I like breastfeeding. It's convenient, easy and a lovely bonding experience. It is, as my sister-in-law Nancy promised me, the lazy woman's method of choice. It also lets us take the baby anywhere with a minimum of gear and hassle. It seems a miracle that I'm able to make all the food my child needs, and to see her plump little arms and dimpled knees and rounded belly is to believe that she's getting everything she requires. Nursing a baby does call for some lifestyle changes though. Olivia likes to cluster feed before bedtime, which is a fancy way of saying that as soon as the sun goes down she starts circling me like a hungry shark. We scramble to have everything done before dark so that I can take care of her without interruption. Some nights we feel like vampires racing the sunrise as we hurry home, or rush through dinner so that the evening cluster feed can begin. Still, I wouldn't trade it. The time I spend nursing her is the most serene part of my day, and the most fulfilling. I used to be someone who just wanted to give breastfeeding a try; now I'm a passionate advocate. Once again, I had a lot of ideas but I didn't know that I would feel this way.

It's hard to describe the mixture of emotions that have swirled around inside of me these last few months. Giddiness, anticipation, hope, pleasure -- sometimes welling up with such intensity that I have to swallow back tears. The sensation is one of being peeled, left so raw that every touch and sound and thought is amplified and made almost unbearably powerful. I worried that I might be the victim of some sort of syndrome or other, that I might have a little postpartum insanity. Then it came to me: what I'm feeling is joy. I expected motherhood to change my life. I expected all sorts of things, like fatigue, and frustration, and failures of competence on my part, large and small. I knew it would be challenging, and I knew it would be fun. I tried to prepare for all of it, the nighttime feedings, and the first smiles, the inconsolable crying and the delights of diapers, teething, fetching and tending. I couldn't wait to watch her wake up to the world. But I didn't know that a chubby face wreathed in smiles could more than compensate for hours of lost sleep, for missed meals, and for the loss of days so unencumbered that, looking back, my former life seems a dream of idleness. Thinking I had prepared for everything, I somehow missed that parenting would bring me so much joy. You'll have to forgive me - I had a lot of ideas, but I didn't know that I would feel this way.