We need sleep!

Here's another great article, this time from today's Daily Mail, highlighting the serious effects of sleep deprivation.

Even more reason to invest in an easidream maybe?

Good snooze guide to help parents of fractious babies
by JENNY HOPE, Daily Mail

Edited extracts appear below:

More than a million parents with babies endure months of sleep loss which can damage their health and threaten their marriages.

But three quarters could and should be getting a good night's rest, say experts.

'The tragic thing about parental sleep deprivation is that much of it is treatable and even preventable using simple and clinically proven techniques,' said Dr David Haslam, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners and patron of the charity Cry-sis.

Figures show that 1.2million adults with infants of under 18 months are regularly being kept awake at night. However, exhaustion is regarded as unavoidable by most new parents who simply 'grin and bear it'.

Dr Haslam said in persistent cases many parents suffer severe effects from sleep deprivation, including long-term health problems and even relationship breakdowns.

The NHS spends around £65million annually to provide support for new parents faced with infant crying and sleeping problems in children from birth to 12 weeks.

'An estimated 1.2million UK parents each year are being woken regularly but at least 700,000 are suffering needlessly,' she said.

'Prolonged sleep deprivation can have devastating effects --that's why it has been used in the past as a form of torture --and yet this problem is all too often regarded as a joke.

Jacqui McGreavey, coordinator of the Tayside Group of Sleep Clinics and researcher into sleep problems, said: 'The stress of long-term night crying in babies can lead to a range of extremely serious problems including child abuse, ill health, marriage and relationship breakdown and inability to function at work.

Serious stuff.... need I say more?