My son is not what you would call a good sleeper. He’s far from the worst, thank God, but I’ve spent a fair number of hours in his room in the middle of the night. My night vision has gotten substantially better over the last year from practice. I scowl at those lucky bastards who say, “My child slept through the night at six weeks.” At 13 months old, we still consider it a good night when he wakes up once and falls back asleep within 10 minutes. So I know of which I speak when I talk about lacking sleep. In fact, every single one of these has happened to me!

You know you’re a sleep-deprived parent when:

• You dream about not being able to sleep.
• You sleep more soundly on the train into work than in your own bed.
• You consider it a major accomplishment to have only a single caffeinated beverage during the day.
• You know how to (kind of) sleep sitting up on the couch with a toddler sprawled out on you.
• You find it hard to sleep without white noise because you’re so used to hearing it over the baby monitor.
• You can apply oral-gel with your eyes closed – literally.
• You have a justified fear of falling asleep on your feet and toppling over.
• Sleeping until 8 am sounds scandalously luxurious.
• 4 am seems like a perfectly normal time to be awake.
• You are just So Damn Tired!