5 things you only know when you're sleep-deprived
It’s been four years and two months since I last slept through the night. Funnily enough, four years and two months is also the age of my oldest child. No prizes for guessing there’s a link here. I struggle to remember what it feels like to go to bed in the blissful knowledge that the next time I’ll be conscious is when my alarm goes off. Instead, my night is routinely broken at whatever point my youngest, now almost two, tires of her cot and decides she’d be far happier horizontally spreadeagled in the middle of our bed, along with several of her soft toys and a battery-powered doll that starts crying if you so much as glance at it.
No matter though, because according to a new study, despite the detrimental effects that children have on their parents’ sleeping patterns, having children does actually improve overall perceived quality of life in adults. The research from Sainsbury’s Living Well Index, in partnership with Oxford Economics and the National Centre for Social research, is released today to tie in with World Sleep Day, a date in the calendar that sounds to those with young children like so much wishful thinking - or a cruel joke.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to know that all this sleep deprivation is scientifically proven to be worth it for parents. But I just want to be sure certain facts have been accounted for:
1. Only coffee makes life possible
Before I installed an Italian cafe-grade espresso machine in my kitchen, I could focus on nothing beyond ‘where can I buy a proper coffee and how strong will it be?’ There was no dismay greater than turning up at a playgroup or soft play centre and finding the coffee options to be unacceptable or non-existent. Only once I’d swallowed that first burning gulp could I start to pay attention to my children and their needs.
2. The afternoon crash
You can power through the morning on a cocktail of caffeine and gritted-teeth determination. But getting through the interminable stretch between lunch and bath time is a challenge for the toughest of us. There comes a point during every afternoon at home when I’m suddenly no longer physically able to remain upright. Since sneaking off for a nap is out of the question with two young children, the only way to handle this is to invent a game that necessitates lying prone and stationary for a while - sleeping lions is a good one. The other game I like to play is ‘First person to move or speak loses’. I always win this one.
3. Competitive tiredness
This is when you and your partner start comparing who has had the worst night and who has the most right to a lie-in (by which I mean staying in bed until after 7am). For instance, they might have got up to change the sheets when someone wet the bed at 2am, but if you then got up at 3am to deal with 20 minutes of crying (your child’s, usually) and then couldn’t get back to sleep for two hours, you win. Again, I always win this one.
4. Bad choices and worse behaviour
You make bad choices when you’re sleep-deprived and use your tiredness to justify all manner of sins. “Yes I will have a fifth chocolate biscuit, thank you very much; I need the energy.” “How dare you accuse me of snapping at you, I did no such thing, NOW SHUT UP.” “I can’t concentrate on this BBC Two documentary, can’t we just watch something mindless that will add nothing to our lives?” All these things are a product of extreme tiredness. We become irritable and impatient and yes, sometimes even irrational.
5. We like to think we’re hiding it well
Don’t cock your head to one side and tell us, “you look tired.” We have probably spent 15 minutes carefully doing our make-up to hide the dark shadows beneath our eyes and we like to believe we are fooling you. Even if we’re not, we’d feel better if you just pretended.
