Tag Archives: sleep deprivation

The house of silent tearaways?

Posted on by

Just seen this piece by the psychologist and parenting expert, Tanya Byron on how sleep deprivation is affecting the behaviour of today’s children and teens. Actually, she says it’s “ruining their lives” – but I suspect that may have been a bit of poetic licence on the part of the journo, rather than a direct quote as I can’t find it anywhere in the article.

As any regular reader of this blog will know, sleep is a subject very dear to my heart – although one very unfamiliar in recent years. Her argument – that parents are doing children no favours by letting them stay up late, allowing screens (mobiles, laptops etc) in bedrooms and giving them snacks, leading to behavioural problems – is sound. I can totally understand why ensuring children have a calm bedroom routine and aren’t allowed to stay up until they want to makes sense. And yet, I suspect it’s not as easy as she says. None of this parenting lark is.

I imagine that if I read about my children’s sleep habits in a newspaper, I would be appropriately shocked and disapproving. Your two year-old has milk from a bottle? In the night? And a dummy? And gets to share your bed? Shall I book his place in borstal now, or would you like to wait a little? Are you some kind of weird martyr to motherhood?

I’m actually pretty far from it, but it has only been until now that I’ve felt confident that I could approach my youngest son’s sleep issues in a “traditional” manner. 10 days ago, I started a “gentle” version of controlled crying with him at bedtime, as I knew he wasn’t in any pain from his reflux at that stage. He now goes to sleep on his own every night, and only wakes during the night about one night in three.

Do I wish he had done this earlier? Of course – the last two years have been a blur, with plenty of undesirable consequences of his poor sleep (PND, etc). But I genuinely don’t feel I could have intervened sooner as I wouldn’t have felt comfortable about the cause of his crying. Now he can tell me if he’s in pain – or if he just wants a cuddle.

The point I am trying to make is that sometimes circumstances get in the way. Yes, I have an “excuse” for the way I have approached my child’s sleep issue (his reflux). But I’m sure plenty of parents of older children have legitimate reasons for the “crimes” Tanya Byron accuses them of. In the current economic climate, people don’t always have the luxury of working near their homes, and this often means parents arriving home late and, quite understandably, wanting to see their children before they go to bed.

Or what about other extra curricular activities – I’m sure most people would approve of young children going to Brownies, Scouts or doing some swimming or music lessons if that’s what they enjoy. But these are often timetabled in the early evening, and parents have to make the choice between their children doing something healthy and character-building – and having them tucked up at an “acceptable” hour.

Of course, we shouldn’t let kids completely rule the roost and choose their own bedtime if they can’t sleep in the next day. And it is good to aim for early nights and predictable routines. But this just feels like more scaremongering for publicity (yup, she’s got a TV show out) – and yet another stick wielded at (mainly) mothers for not getting things “right”.

The true cost of sleep deprivation

Posted on by

I am on my knees with exhaustion again. B has one of those autumn viruses that are going around and he is awake and crying all night. It is pretty extreme at the moment and I know it will pass, but when added to two solid years of regular broken and short nights, it is starting to feel like Too Much.

While I lay awake at 4am (the killer hour in terms of self pity and jump-off-a-bridge-type-thoughts) I began counting the cost that this incessant sleep deprivation has had on my life.

Financial cost

Neither I nor my partner are working full time at the moment, because it is physically impossible. Luckily we are both in professions where we can freelance, but two part-time, freelance wages are simply not cutting it. With more sleep, we would both be able to take on more work and earn enough money to get by. At the moment, our savings are subsidising our work patterns, but this cannot continue indefinitely.

Emotional cost

When you are constantly exhausted, all your relationships suffer. In a couple, you bicker and snap more. You are less patient with your children. Friendships are harder to maintain because you don’t have the energy to go out, and when you do you’re clock watching, ever aware that with each hour that goes by you’ll feel that much worse the next day, and you can’t bank on a solid seven or eight hours the next night to catch up.

Physical cost

Our bodies simply aren’t meant to go without sustained periods of rest for any length of time. Aches and pains set in. Injuries take longer to heal, you get ill more frequently and for longer as your immune system is shot to pieces. Your body feels like it’s falling apart. Exercise really helps your mood (and has recently been proved to reduce incidences of PND in this Australian study), but you can’t guarantee that the opportunity to exercise will always coincide with having enough energy to do it.

The worst of it is the sense of powerless it gives you. Yes, I realise it is totally self-inflicted (in that I took the decision to have two children), but you don’t know when you make that decision what kind of baby you will get. Some people have children who sleep through from relatively early on – and for those people, life is qualitatively different. Of course, they will have other struggles – I’m not suggesting that life is a piece of cake if you have good sleepers. But when your every decision is taken through a veil of physical and mental tiredness, life is more limited. You don’t visit friends and stay overnight because you know the screaming will keep your hosts up all night, and creeping round strange houses at 4.30am, trying to keep quiet for the five hours until everyone else wakes up is unrelaxing in the extreme. You don’t apply for interesting sounding jobs because they might involve evening work or overnight stays – both of which would put intolerable pressure on the one staying at home. Your world becomes very small and predictable – in order to make things manageable.

I know this is just a rant, and I apologise to anyone who has read this far and is waiting for something uplifting, inspirational or hopeful. I guess I just want to explain why I might turn down your offer of a night out or a weekend away – or an international, jet-setting job for that matter.

I also know I am fortunate in that (I hope) this situation will not continue indefinitely. I know parents of children who have disabilities that mean they will never enjoy an unbroken night’s sleep, and I feel guilty for complaining. But right now, I would donate any number of non-essential body parts in exchange for a couple of unbroken nights’ sleep and am praying to the karmic gods to make it happen. So if you see me helping old ladies across the road (whether they like it or not) or picking up other people’s litter, know that I am doing what I can to encourage the universe to give me a break on this front. Because no buggering other approach has worked thus far…

 

Six months on – what’s changed?

Posted on by

I realise it’s been six months since I did my New Year’s stocktaking post, where I looked at helped – and what hindered – my attempts to sort out my PND.

A few things have changed since then. One of the most significant is stopping taking my antidepressant medication, without any apparent side effects. There was no real spur to come off them, other than as an experiment to see if I really needed them or not. I’m not ruling out taking them again in the future if things get worse, but it’s good to know that they’ve served their purpose of giving me the resilience to help me improve my mood through other methods for now.

I’ve also increased my working hours – not by much, admittedly, but enough to feel that I’m part of the working world again. I’ve had some interesting and enjoyable projects, which have given a real boost to my self esteem/ego.

One major thing that has sadly not changed is the sleeping situation. I am probably even more tired than six months ago because of the cumulative effect of the sleep deprivation. My kids wake through the night and are up and ready to start the day at 5.30. I’m hoping the early waking stuff will change as the mornings get darker, but I would welcome any advice from people who have managed to deal with non-sleeping pre-schoolers and toddlers. I suspect the only solution is for me to go to bed earlier, but that would feel like a backwards step in terms of regaining some time/head space that is not all about the children.

So, to sum it up (God, I love bullet points), what has worked in the last six months includes:

  • Doing a mindfulness course (here is the one I’m following) and trying to weave it into my daily life
  • Working more
  • Dropping the antidepressants and replacing them with decent vitamins, and even more tea and coffee
  • Accepting what I cannot change and changing what I can (stolen from the Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer)
  • Being grateful for what I do have and trying not to sweat the small stuff.

And what hasn’t:

  • Any attempt on my part to change my children’s sleep patterns.

Here’s hoping something might have changed by New Year 2013…

The land of no nod

Posted on by

It’s about as obvious as it gets, but sleep deprivation absolutely does for me. I wasn’t planning on blogging about it so soon, but recent events have made me think of little else.

My eldest son is very accident prone and this week broke his collarbone for the second time in two months. Or maybe he’s not accident prone and I’m a careless and neglectful mother – it’s quite possible. Either way, he is now in a lot of pain and struggling to sleep at night. Combined with this his brother teething for the country and I’m not managing to string together more than an hour at a time. You expect that when they’re newborn and you have some reserves (and adrenaline) but this far in I’m struggling to keep it together.

I also don’t like the way it makes me behave as a mother, more impatient, less fun. Which has the knock-on effect of making me feel guilty and inadequate, and completing the joyous cycle of PND.

A few months back I asked a question on the mumsnet forum (of which I’ve been a member for 3 years, more on this lifesaver another time) about how to cope with very little sleep. I put in the proviso that I didn’t have loads of time for exercise, and one of the suggestions that came back was a CD which the poster couldn’t remember the name of, but which was supposed to be the equivalent of four hours sleep in one listen. If anyone reading this know what I’m talking about I’d love to hear!

Someone also mentioned a programme called pzizz. You can download it onto phones as an app, as an MP3 file, or onto your computer. It’s pretty pricey but you can download one of the shorter ‘sleep’ or ‘energiser’ tracks for less. I think I’ll give it a whirl (as it’s only the price of a few coffees I’m becoming ever reliant on) and report back when I’ve had a listen.