We love blaming our children for life’s little mishaps.
When we’re late: “My neighbours must think I’m nuts, all I’ve done is shout ‘brush your teeth’ for the past hour!”
When we lose the car keys: “I found them in the washing machine. Again.”
When we need some new shoes (children do come in handy sometimes): “The little blighter drew a smiley face on my favourite ballet pumps!”
Researchers have now discovered that we have a tendency to add our own sleep problems to that never ending list of blame - somewhat unfairly I might add.
In a recent study, 100 children were fitted with an ‘actigraph’ which uses motion detectors to assess quality of sleep. In addition, parents were asked to write down their own sleep patterns and those of their children.
The parents who reported having sleep problems claimed their children had sleep problems too. Interestingly, the actigraphs proved that in fact, those particular children had slept rather well.
So are we inadvertently blaming our sleepless nights on a misplaced notion that our ‘restless’ children are keeping us awake?
Quite how the parents who slept like a log could recount how their children fared during the night is another matter entirely…
The point is, psychologists say our misconceptions concerning our children’s sleeping habits could be damaging. They warn that if a child is labelled a ‘bad sleeper’ when they’re not, they might just start believing it, increasing their chances of actually becoming one. And we wouldn’t want that now would we?
Oh and it also means you might want to address your own sleeping habits too. It’s probable that the best sleepers in this experiment were proud owners of a Little Lucy Willow bed. Ahem...Perhaps you might want to follow their lead? We can cater for grown ups too you know...
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