It's a Dad's Life: I am operating from a position of sleep deprivation. My body clock has wound down to where it regards the average recharge a night as being four to five hours.

Some people can function with that little rest, I am not one of them.

Worse than that, the missus certainly does not like being disturbed from her slumbers, so most of the time the night-shift is mine. That's fair enough (I mumble grudgingly), she does pay the mortgage.

At the moment the cause of concern is teeth. Little white ones cutting through soft, pink gums, much to the consternation of the younger child.

I've been through this process before, the elder howled for weeks on end, then would take a breather for a couple of days before resuming. It lasted, I think, for about 18 months.

This time around I recognise the flushed cheeks, the temperatures, the nuclear nappies and the gnawing on anything nailed down and an imperviousness to pain. I can see the agony and frustration, but I'm struggling to empathise. She can't speak to explain just what's wrong; she can only shriek, grunt, point and kick. I want to make things as easy as possible for her - but I haven't had a decent night's kip in months and my patience is wearing thin, chiffon thin.

We are six months into it on this cycle and feeling the pressure. Why, I ask myself every night around 3am, does it have to be this hard?

Then you get a little break. One morning you wake up and realise you've just slept the whole night through. You don't get too excited, believing it to be an anomaly, a wee blip.

Then the next day, the same thing, and the next, and the one after it. Soon, you've had nearly a week of dream-filled nights, your skin and hair are recovering some lustre, you've even dared to have a couple of drinks and have not been woken up half-jarred.

You get cocky and feel like a fully paid-up member of the human race. That's when you're weak and vulnerable.

The very next night you can be guaranteed that gurgling little mass of smiles and honey will be possessed by the devil. She knows you've been sleeping. She knows your defences are down, your shut-eye needs are back up, and she says it's time to pay for neglecting to stay alert.

Each time the pain seems worse, for me and her.

Sometimes there is a prolonged period between bouts of teething, but that is usually filled with a cold or an eye-infection, or maybe both. She likes variety.

My ears are attuned to the smallest whimper.

I find myself waking up to silence occasionally and realise she probably just cried out in her sleep. But I go down the steps to her room anyway, just to check she's breathing and hasn't kicked the covers off.

It's at those times that I can sit and look at her.

Her breath rising and falling, face buried in the soft fur of a favourite teddy. It's at those times that the home truths kick in, that this is a powerful and all too brief period in my life, and what seems like eternity in her brand new existence.

Watching her peace in the dark of the night I feel guilty for ever resenting that she is disturbing my rest, or demanding of my time, or just wants to be picked up and held because a shadow on the wall frightened her and she doesn't know what it was.

I shouldn't need to be reminded how lucky I am, but sometimes she does it for me.

abrophy@irish-times.ie