英三成家庭解體源起“夜哭郎”

Sleepless nights with screaming babies can ruin your marriage and your health

中國日報網 2013-03-20 08:24

In the Channel 4 survey, one in three parents who had split up said sleep deprivation caused by their child was a factor.

As any parents of a young child who is a problem sleeper will confirm, permanent tiredness and constant irritability can put a huge strain on your relationship. In fact, according to a survey, lack of sleep is a big factor in divorce and separation for a third of couples.

Ahead of a new series on the subject, a poll carried out for Channel 4 suggests the average parent surveyed got fewer than six hours of sleep a night. It also found that three in 10 couples who had split up said sleep deprivation since having their child was a factor in the breakup. Nearly 45% said they had dozed off in a place they shouldn't have or was unsafe, with one in 20 admitting to falling asleep at the wheel of their car.

Children waking throughout the night, as well as the struggle to get children off to bed at a respectable hour, were equally important issues for parents. Nearly half of the 2,000 people questioned said getting their child to sleep at a consistent time was a nightly battle.

Around 11% admitted to pretending to be asleep in the night so that their partner was forced to deal with a crying child, while 11% said they had shut the door and 9% said they had turned up the TV to block out the noise of a sobbing child. A fifth of parents blamed the fact that their child had a television in their room for their failure to fall asleep.

But psychologist Tanya Byron, who is among a panel of experts taking part in the series, Bedtime Live, which will allow people to call in via video to the show and ask for help, said it wasn't about blaming parents – rather that family downtime was being eroded by the demands of work and the attraction of technologies, and that sleep was being lost as a result.

Sleep deprivation in adults was also a worry, she said, pointing to tests done on the sleep-deprived mothers. "Those without sleep were just as dangerous as those who had been drinking. One woman drove 100 metres with her eyes closed."

"What we have to remember is that fundamentally we are beings who run on circadian rhythms and we are just putting our brains under constant stress if we can't get our sleep."

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(Source: Guardian)

任何家里有不肯好好睡覺的幼童的父母都會證實這一點，長期的疲倦和持續的煩躁會讓你的感情關系承受巨大壓力。事實上，調查顯示，缺乏睡眠是三分之一夫婦離婚和分居的一個重要原因。

英國第4頻道在推出一個針對這一題材的新系列節目之前，委托開展了一項調查。該調查顯示，被調查的父母平均每晚睡眠還不到六個小時。調查還發現，十分之三的離婚夫妻稱有小孩后一直睡眠不足是導致他們分手的一個原因。近45%的父母說，他們曾經在不應睡著或不安全的地方打瞌睡，二十分之一的父母承認曾在開車時睡著。

孩子整晚不睡，以及努力讓孩子在正常時間上床睡覺，對父母們而言都是同樣重要的事情。在接受調查的2000名父母中，近半數人稱讓孩子在固定時間上床睡覺是每夜的戰斗任務。

約有11%的父母們承認自己夜里曾假裝睡著，這樣他們的配偶只好被迫去應對哭泣的小孩。此外，為了不聽見孩子的哭聲，11%的父母稱自己把門關上，9%的父母稱自己把電視音量調高。五分之一的父母把孩子不睡覺歸咎于在孩子房間里安放了電視機。

心理學家塔尼婭?拜倫是參與制作這一名為《睡前直播》新系列節目的專家之一，她表示這一調查不是要指責父母，而是要指出家庭的停工時間正在被工作要求和技術的誘惑力所侵蝕，從而造成了睡眠缺失。《睡前直播》將讓人們可以通過視頻電話參與到節目中來并尋求幫助。

她說，成年人的睡眠不足也是讓人擔憂的一個問題，她還提到了對睡眠不足的母親們所做的測試。“那些沒有睡覺的人就和喝了酒的人一樣危險。曾經有個女人閉著眼開車走了100米。”

“我們要記住的是本質上我們是按照晝夜節律來運作的生物，如果我們得不到睡眠，我們就會讓我們的大腦遭受持續的壓力。”

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（中國日報網英語點津?陳丹妮編輯：Julie）

Vocabulary:

downtime: 停工期，停工時間

circadian rhythm: 晝夜節律

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