Seven weeks ago I gave birth to my second child, a little girl named Caoimhe Elizabeth. With dark, spiky hair, large almond-shaped eyes and a lopsided grin, Caoimhe has captivated my heart. Life simply couldn't be better. Well, actually, it could.

For there is a price to pay for all this happiness -- sleep. Or in my case, a severe lack of it. And apparently I'm not alone.

A recent survey by Mother & Baby magazine revealed that new mothers in Britain are managing only three-and-a-half hours' sleep a night -- half the amount their parents had a generation ago.

Compared to those British mothers, I'm lucky. For the past few weeks I've been averaging roughly four-and-a-half to five hours a night. But for someone who needs a good eight hours to remain civil, the results have been ugly.

I am sluggish, forgetful and irritable. My grooming standards have gone out the window. With my wrinkled tracksuit bottoms, zombie pallor and hair standing on end, I feel as though I've joined the ranks of the walking dead.

Routine daily events become headaches, small problems threaten to turn into crises. I go to great lengths to avoid conversing with friendly neighbours or acquaintances. I especially don't want to have to answer seemingly innocuous questions like: "How are you?" and "How's the baby sleeping?"

Well-intentioned, kind and thoughtful single people risk their safety when they pose similar questions. One recently asked my husband: "Why are you so tired?" Thankfully I was in the other room and so he left the house unscathed.

Don't think I'm naive. I knew what I was getting into. Sleep deprivation and I are old friends. As a second-time parent, I braced myself the day we brought Caoimhe home from the labour ward. But that night she slept well. And the night after and the one after that.

"We have the perfect baby," I boasted to anyone who would listen in those heady first weeks. "She's sleeping so well. I can't believe it. This second child business is easy."

I soon suffered for my smug words. A few days after my mother returned to Ireland and my husband to work, Caoimhe decided to turn nocturnal.

My "perfect" baby now slept during the day and partied hard at night. After several hours of frantic activity she would usually call it a night around 3am. But four hours later her two year-old brother would get up, demanding to see Mum -- not Daddy -- Mum. Bleary-eyed and increasingly desperate, I called a paediatrician for advice.

"Keep her awake between 5pm and 10pm," she suggested. We tried but even without sleeping in the evening, Caoimhe was wide-eyed and bouncy after midnight, ready to coo and kick. A brief pause would raise my hopes -- perhaps this was the night she would drift off to dreamland at the appointed hour.

Then I would see her little legs flailing about above the edge of the cot, and hear her snorting and gurgling. She was ready for the party to begin.

I tried out every remedy in the books, every tip passed on by sympathetic mothers. Caoimhe slept in her cot, she slept next to me in our bed. I tried to eat the right things and stay away from caffeine. I tried nursing her to sleep, giving her a baby "massage" after an evening bath, swaddling and pacing the floor with her. Sometimes she fell asleep in my husband's arms, only to waken in her cot shortly after we set her down.

Meanwhile, sleep deprivation was taking its toll. My husband took one day off from work (he had already used up his paternity leave), and friends tried to help occupy my son Liam. I was told to sleep when the baby sleeps, at least when Liam was out of the house. But the frustrating thing is I find it almost impossible to nap. I've never been good at it. My mind just refuses to pause in the daylight hours.

I did manage to nap on some mornings that Liam went to play school. My mastitis went away, started to come back again a few weeks later and now seems to be gone for good.

Despite all this whingeing, I know things could be much worse, that Caoimhe is after all still very new to this world and her older sibling thankfully never wakes during her night time crying. It's reassuring to learn that most mothers seem to be in the same boat. But what I didn't realise is that our own mothers actually got more sleep on average, according to that British survey. The older generation was more willing to let a baby cry, more able to set down a firm schedule, tended to stop breastfeeding earlier and was more ready to give the infant a soother.

Baby sleeping guru Kim West, author of the best-selling Good Night, Sleep Tight: The Sleep Lady's Gentle Guide to Helping Your Child go to Sleep, Stay Asleep, and Wake Up Happy, told me that she is not surprised with the results of the survey.

Today's stressed-out mothers are not only burdened with the guilt of juggling work with caring for their babies, says West, but they're also doing most of the household management too. It is a lethal combination and a guaranteed set-up for disappointment.

"People tend to feel very ashamed as though they failed. Because usually the first question is: 'Well, how old is your baby and are they sleeping through the night?'" says West. "The moms usually feel like a failure. They feel as though they should have been able to figure this out."

West has transformed the lives of over 3,000 exhausted parents in the US and abroad - by teaching their children how to put themselves to sleep while still keeping an attachment to their parents.

"I think a lot of them are anxious and feel hopeless that it will ever change. Some say they will never have more kids. I have had couples who were on the brink of divorce," explains West.

"If you become sleep deprived for long enough you become psychotic," she said.

While I have had a few desperate moments I have not turned psychotic yet. Caoimhe turns two months this week and finally seems to be turning a corner. She still settles down very late (or very early in the morning) but is now sleeping through for five to six hours at a time. I remain a zombie, but the occasional morning naps have kept me afloat.

Someone recently told me that newborn babies are automatically programmed to smile and coo adorably at around the six-week mark. Just about the time when their sleep-deprived parents are ready to literally throw the baby out with the bath water.

Now when I awaken in the morning and bend over Caoimhe's cot I am greeted by a joyous squeal and a giant cheesy grin. In that moment I couldn't care less if I've had one hour's sleep or 10.

- Caitriona Palmer