Friday, 11 March 2011

• What do you do when sleep is in short supply?

  

   

  I’m pretty used to running on 5 hours sleep a night. Used to be I could not function with less than 8 hours a night but my girls have changed all that.

  Between their night waking and early morning antics and just not going to bed some times… well sleep is often in short supply. This is something many parents are familiar with, particularly parents of special needs children.

  A couple of nights ago though I only managed 3 hours and it got me puzzling over what can you do to battle the effects of sleep deprivation whilst still needing to care for children.

  Coffee is my friend – before midday. After midday Pepsi Max is my friend, until about 3pm when I cut off the caffeine supply in the hope the children may go to bed early and sleep through and thus I can too.

  Fresh air helps, so does keeping moving – if I stop or sit down then it is very likely I will fall asleep.

  Crunchy foods. Love me some crunchy food, it just wakes the brain right up. Now I could be healthy and go with carrots and apples but sadly as my waist line shows I’m usually turning to crisps.

  And of course a nanna nap is just blissful whenever the gods of parenting align to allow me some child free time

  What do you do when sleep is in short supply?

   

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