Sleep-starved parents ask 'when will it end?'

Parental survey: Nearly half of all Irish parents of babies aged 13 months or less are getting an average of less than four hours unbroken sleep a night, a survey has found.

The survey of almost 500 Irish parents, conducted in March and April, found 43 per cent of parents are getting an average of three hours and 45 minutes unbroken sleep.

They "are desperate for sleep", says the survey. It results in 20 per cent of parents becoming bad-tempered and one in two feeling tearful or emotional on a regular basis.

The survey, by nappy manufacturer Pampers, purports to provide the answer to the question that all parents of small babies want but are too tired to ask - namely "When will I get some proper sleep?"

One-quarter of parents said they became irritable with their spouse or partner, 15 per cent had become forgetful and 10 per cent had become more accident prone due to lack of sleep.

And the key finding: "The experience lasts up to six months when the average baby starts to sleep through the night."

It says parents tend to keep the baby's cot in their room for nine months and 13 per cent of babies end up in their parents' bed every night.

The survey was also carried out among UK parents and one of the findings was that Irish dads are better at sharing the sleep deprivation load. While 30 per cent of Irish dads never got up when the baby cried at night, 45 per cent of British dads snoozed on.

Irish babies are less likely to be breast fed (36 per cent) than British babies (40 per cent). Some 46 per cent of Irish babies are bottle fed compared with 33 per cent of British babies, while in Ireland 18 per cent of babies were fed with a combination of breast and bottle and 27 per cent of British babies were fed this way.

The survey found only 38 per cent of Irish parents had an established bedtime routine for their babies and while 42 per cent breast or bottle fed their babies to sleep, 32 per cent preferred cuddling to lull them to sleep.

"One in three parents use some form of music to try to get their children to sleep. Classical music was the most popular followed by the traditional Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Many mothers swore by the TV theme tunes from soaps including Fair City and Eastenders. For the majority of parents, this process takes around 45 minutes."

The survey authors said many mothers felt nurseries and nannies let their children sleep too much during the day, though they said toddlers spent less than two hours a day in the fresh air "which could hinder attempts to get them to nod off".