Scary New Research Reveals Why Frazzled Parents Should Think Twice Before Doing The Nursery Run

New research has revealed the terrifying effects of sleep deprivation on driving [Photo: Rex Features]

On a scale of one to ten, how tired are you feeling this morning? If you’re a new parent, chances are you’d probably rate yourself pretty darned exhausted. Baby was up at 1am, 3am and again at 5am and now you’re chugging the coffee in a desperate bid to rouse yourself in time to do the nursery run. Gah! If all this is sounding all too familiar, you might want to shake yourself awake enough to read the latest research which has revealed the real effects sleep deprivation can have on frazzled parents. It makes for some pretty scary reading.

The experiment, funded and conducted by Time4sleep examined how having broken, and no sleep (hello unsettled baby and/or teething toddler) impacts on your driving capabilities compared to having the normal night’s sleep most parents can only dream of. The results demonstrated that parent’s reaction times are significantly slower and the risk of falling asleep at the wheel increases with lack of sleep even in the short term.

A set of triplets from Essex, Robert, Steven and Patrick Davis were all sent to sleep for differing amounts of time over a one night period and asked to take part in a driving simulation exercise the next day. Robert lucked out and was given a full night’s sleep, Steven had a night of disrupted sleep thanks to a lifelike robotic baby – to mimic the sleeping patterns of a parent with a young child. And Patrick was awake all night. Know the feeling!

Unsurprisingly, the results found that the quality of driving was directly linked with the amount of sleep each had received.

Steven spends the night looking after a robotic baby [Photo: Time4sleep]

Robert, who had a full night’s sleep was the first to undergo the simulator and fared the best. He had no fatigue alerts from a heart rate monitor, and the fewest departures from his lane – amounting to just 39 seconds.

Steven, had 4 fatigue alerts after a night of disrupted sleep – and left his lane for a duration of 1 minute and 40 seconds. But the worst was Patrick, who went a whole night without sleep, who received 12 fatigue alerts and who’s ability to stay in the same lane was dangerously compromised, drifting out on 188 separate occasions, which equated to six minutes outside of his lane.

Interestingly, it was Steven, with disrupted sleep from the robotic baby, who had the slowest reaction times, which highlights that even parents who have managed to have some sleep are still putting themselves and others at risk by driving. He failed to react ten times, which was twice as often as Patrick and substantially more than Robert, who had no missed reactions

With further research estimating that 83% of UK drivers have driven tired and almost 10% of parents admitting to taking a child to nursery after having disturbed sleep during the night, the experiment paints a pretty scary picture particularly when you consider that one in fie car crashes are attributed to fatigue.

One in ten parents have admitted driving their kids to nursery after a disturbed night [Photo: Rex Features]

Simon Tong, principal psychologist at TRL, commented on the findings: “The findings of our experiment reveal just how important it is to only undertake driving when feeling alert and having had sufficient sleep. The key finding here was how affected Steven was with disrupted sleep as this is most common to real life.

“One dangerous aspect of fatigue is how it can come and go quite suddenly. You can get a false impression that you’ve overcome it, only to find that it strikes again a short time later when you perhaps aren’t expecting it. This was clearly seen when we observed Steven doing his drive.”

Jonathan Warren, Director at Time4Sleep.co.uk who commissioned the research, added: “It’s not uncommon for parents of a new baby or toddler to go a few weeks or even months without uninterrupted sleep, and we hope our research and video will encourage parents to think twice before getting behind the wheel if they’ve been up throughout the night with their child.”

What do you think of the new research? Let us know @YahooStyleUK