Sleep Deprived Parents

We may not get the amount of sleep desired during the week with school and work cutting into our sleep which is why we try to play catch-up on the weekends, unless it happens to be daylight savings time weekend. Who decided to place daylight saving time (which robs us of an hour of sleep) on the weekend when we’re trying to catch up on sleep? All it succeeds in doing is making people rush and be late for church. My mother rushed to get dressed and out before she realized – she’s retired. She has no place to be. She wakes when she wants and eats when she wants. The woman has no time constraints.

But, for those of us who have time constraints, daylight saving time can be hazardous to your health. An article in USA Today on March 7 cited Christopher Barnes (management professor at University of Washington) has documented an increase of workplace injuries and that heart attacks and car accidents are higher on Sleepy Monday. To me daylight saving time is like an annual short-term case of jetlag. You feel disoriented for a while and then you get through it.

Some will use the lost hour as an excuse to not do things such as – I was going to go to the gym with the hour we lost. Some will claim it impedes their work. Ladies of the Night will now have to wait extra hours before walking the streets; otherwise they’ll lose the hard-earned title – Ladies of the Night.

If it’s true that loss of sleep due to daylight saving time can be hazardous to one’s health, then what about becoming a first time parent? In the blink of an eye two people go from sleeping eight hours a night to never sleeping. Then is a baby a danger to your health? Does sleeping four hours a night, say for one year, put you in the danger zone? And the thing about parenthood is you can’t catch up on sleep over the weekend. Does being sleep deprived and anxious put you in a high risk category? You’re told to sleep when the baby sleeps, but no one listens. You would never bath and that’s not good.

New parents are so deprived they reach in the fridge for a cold bottle and realize they’re drinking baby formula rather than beer. New parents are so deprived they put the dog in the car seat and throw a bone to the baby when going out. New parents are so deprived they powder their baby’s bottom along with their cell phone and wrap both in a diaper. Every time the baby’s diaper rings, they run around in circles.                                    

This ongoing sleep deprivation can’t be good, especially for the baby with the cell phone in its diaper. New parents spend every day looking to catch some sleep and for their cell phones. Daylight saving time may be hazardous to your health, but parenthood can be deadly. Someone should do a study, but please, hang onto your cell phone.