Mum's tip helping others survive sleep deprivation

Losing sleep and having children go hand in hand, but there’s one tip a couple of mums swear by.

Writing about her tip for Babble, a mother-of-four says when the fourth child came around she was terrified of the amount of sleep she was going to lose.

“Within a six-year window, I had four children and worked night shifts as a nurse for a good chunk of that time,” she writes. “So when I became pregnant with my fourth baby, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I was terrified.

“By that point, I was so exhausted that I simply couldn’t imagine getting up every few hours to breastfeed a newborn while still caring for my other three kids and working.” 

Somewhere in between that panic, she came across a simple piece of advice from a mum-of-eight, who writes the blog Danielle Bean, that changed her life.

Don’t look at the clock. Ever.

After following this piece of advice, the mum says it saved her from counting how many hours you have left to left before having to get up.

“Following this rule was very freeing for me. OK, the baby is up crying? Don’t check the clock,” she said, “In fact, if you have actual clocks in your rooms, just turn them around."

“Just go with it. Don’t think about it. It will save you calculating how many hours you will have left if you go to sleep right this second. It will keep you from sinking into that dark, dark place.”