What Mum Really Wants for Mother’s Day

Do you know what your wife/mum wants for her Mother's Day this year?

Sure, flowers, chocolates and jewellery are always nice but a thread on Mumsnet.com recently found that what mums truly dreamed about relates to sleep, or more accurately, the lack of it.

Sleep deprivation

New parents are often easy to spot.

Most new parents report being shocked at just how exhausting parenting a baby is, with bloodshot eyes and dark circles usually a clear giveaway.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, the average adult needs seven to nine hours of sleep every night. Young babies usually sleep for short periods for 16 to 20 hours over 24 hours, making it virtually impossible for a parent to get more than a couple hours of rest at a time.

When mums (or dads) sleep only a couple of hours a night repeatedly, they build up a "sleep debt" that can be hard to pay back. If their sleep debt persists over time, their health can suffer.

As the children grow bigger and older, things are supposed to get easier. Despite this, for every child a woman has, it has been reported that the chances of regularly not getting enough sleep goes up by 50%.

The study found that not only was living with children associated with how long younger women slept but also how often they felt tired.

Lie in

Taking all of this into consideration, it’s not surprising that a nice long lie-in was the most wished-for present on Mother’s Day with mums from all over the country wishing that dad would get up with the children, look after them and just leave them to it for a few hours.

Bear in mind that mum is unlikely to relax and make the most of this if she can hear the kids squabbling or the CBeebies theme tune belting it upstairs.

If the kids are at a noisy age, taking them out somewhere for a few hours is a good way to get around this.

This is not to say that mum doesn’t want to see her kids on Mother’s Day. For most of us, long gone are the days when a lie-in meant rolling out of bed at midday, perhaps feeling a little bleary from the night before.

For most mums, an extra few hours in bed with no need to get up and feed little people is pure bliss.

Keep it fresh

Want to go that extra mile for some extra brownie points? Change the bedding for her the night before. Is there anything better than the feeling of clean, fresh, crisp bedding?

Of course, even the most carefully planned lie-in is likely to be ruined if your bed is old, sad, tired and just plain uncomfortable.

If it’s more than 7 years old, it’s worth taking a long, hard look at both your mattress and base. If your base is sprung, are there any visible dips or depressions that could suggest it’s losing its support?

If it has solid slats, is there any bowing that you can see? Ditto with your mattress.

If it’s lost its support, it doesn’t matter how long you spend in it, you won’t be waking up feeling refreshed and energised and nor will Mum.

Whilst a new bed or mattress (or both!) might seem an excessive Mother’s Day present, it’s something worth looking at if your existing bed is showing signs of age.

Dormeo has a great range of mattresses, mattress toppers, bedsteads, and ottomans to suit every bedroom and every budget.

If you have any questions or queries, we are on hand any time to answer them, free, on 0800 625 0134.