When I was pregnant a friend of my mum’s jokingly said to me ‘be prepared not to sleep for the next 18 years’! I laughed. Little did I know that her joke wasn’t quite as funny as I had thought.  Seven years into parenting, I am still sleep deprived.  Just because your kids aren’t babies waking up for night feeds, it doesn’t mean that the sleep depravation and tiredness ends, right?  I mean when was the last time you had a lie-in?  Or woke up feeling really refreshed?

While it may not be possible to change the number of hours of sleep you get, it is possible to get a better night’s sleep and that’s what really counts.  It’s scientifically proven that better sleep is more important than more sleep. I’ve been doing a few things recently to help myself get a better nights sleep so that I wake up refreshed in the morning and these may help you too. I’ve tried to suggest things that you can do immediately and that have worked:

1. Get a good mattress
This is the single most important thing you can do to get a better night’s sleep. If you do nothing else, do this especially if you’ve got an old sprung mattress that hasn’t been updated in years or if you’ve got any kind of back pain like so many of us mums have.

In the past I’ve always focused on the bed frame and never on the mattress so I’ve never, ever had a good mattress.  In the last couple of years (yes years) I’ve felt myself waking up tired and achy each morning no matter how much I slept and it was getting worse.  I kind of accepted this as my fate until a chance conversation with my cousin who convinced me my problem was my mattress – which was a standard, old, sprung one.  So I made the decision to get a new mattress but then inertia set in.  I couldn’t face reading endless reviews about mattresses in an effort to choose one.  It was then that Leesa got in touch and asked me to review one of theirs.  Leesa are an American brand of mattress that recently launched in the UK.  Of course I said yes – I felt like the universe had heard me! 

Leesa made life really simple – they only have one type of mattress in four different sizes.  The idea is that they’ve created a mattress that works for everybody and completely takes the hassle out of choosing.  The prices go from £390 (single) to £740 (super king) so the mattresses cost less than half of what other luxury mattresses cost and delivery is free too, plus there’s a discount code for my readers and a little extra gift (see end of post).  And there’s no risk to you to try one out because Leesa offer all their customers a 100 night risk-free trial.  This makes so much more sense than lying on a mattress in-store for 5 minutes and choosing on the basis of that.

{somebody thought they had got a new trampoline but I included this image as it shows how the mattress moulds to the weight of your body}

Leesa’s mattress is a 3 layer foam mattress including a middle memory foam layer all wrapped in a seamless, soft cover.  I really liked the feel and softness of the mattress cover.  It took me minutes to complete the ordering online which was so easy and when the mattress arrived a couple of days later, I was really excited to try it out.  But as I had never tried a foam mattress before – always the more traditional sprung ones – I was also a little concerned that I might just sink into it and not be able to move around.  But I shouldn’t have worried.  The foam moulds to accommodate your body and your shape, making it comfortable to lie on and easy to turn. And I’ve also noticed that when Richard turns, I don’t feel it.  Before I’d often be disturbed when he turned heavily in his sleep or got up to go to the loo but now I don’t even know.

Leesa suggest that getting used to the mattress can take around 30 days, especially if you’ve always had a basic spring one.  I’ve used it for a week and I am feeling much better in the morning – bye-bye achy body that had become a part of my life.  I don’t actually know if I am sleeping better but I must be because not only is the pain gone, but I am also not tired and wake up feeling refreshed in the morning.  (I think Richard is happiest about the fact that I don’t get up complaining each morning).  The only thing I am finding a little different to get used to is sitting up in bed and reading which I do each night.  On the other hand, Richard loved this – he felt much more comfortable when sitting-up reading on the Leesa mattress than on our old one.

The Leesa mattress comes in a really small box for the size of the mattress so it makes it much easier to move to the room you need it in and to place it on the bed.  The mattress comes with the air sucked out which is how it fits in to a small box, and as soon as you open it, it expands and is completely ready within an hour.

2. Keep your bedroom clutter and chaos free
This has also helped me a lot and it costs nothing at all.  Kids have things – big things, little things, medium sized things, just so many things.  And these things have a tendency to spread themselves all over the house, including your bedroom.  Since we moved to our new place, I made a rule that no toys or any kind of kiddy clutter is allowed in our bedroom.  My bedroom is instantly so much tidier.  I also make the effort to put my own clothes away each day rather than throw them on a chair like I used to.  Walking into a tidy, clutter free room each night instantly makes me feel like I’ve walked into my little sanctuary.

3. Choose colours that relax you
What is your favourite colour?  Does a pale blue make you feel calm?  Or does a soft beige make you feel relaxed?  My favourites are shades of grey with lots of white and hints of black.  Grey and white calm and relax me like no other colour and that is what I have chosen for my bedroom.   So a simple lick of paint can instantly transform your room in to a more relaxing zone.

4. Switch off your screens
Ok, this isn’t something I’ve managed to do every night but I am trying to switch off all my screens at least an hour before sleeping and instead I read books or magazines.  The ideal is two hours before sleeping but so many of us have blogs and businesses and need to catch up after the kids have gone to bed or simply we haven’t had time to browse the internet during the day.  But even an hour before is far better than not having any screen-free time before bed.

5.  Don’t co-sleep
Do you co-sleep? It had never been our plan but that’s just how life has worked out for us a lot of the time. We get uninvited guests climbing in at around 2am quite often.  This has often caused me to wake up with so much neck/shoulder pain that lasted weeks that I’ve even had to go to the doctor a few times, convinced I had something terminal after consulting google (do you consult Dr. Google too?).  Real doctor’s advice – don’t co-sleep even if your kids are toddlers because it doesn’t let anyone to get a really good nights sleep.  Break the cycle slowly but break it.

So these are some tips that have worked in helping me get a better nights sleep and making sure I wake up refreshed in the morning.  And if you’re thinking of a new mattress, do it.  I couldn’t be happier with the way I’m feeling each morning with the Leesa mattress – I’ve even indulged in breakfast in bed after so long. But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Try it for up to 100 nights risk free and if you don’t like it, Leesa will come and collect it for free and give you a full refund.  The mattress will then be donated to a charity in need.  So everybody wins.

Leesa are offering my readers a special discount code where you get £50 off any Leesa mattress you buy plus a little extra gift. Visit Leesa to find out more and the code + extra gift will automatically be added or else here’s the code in case: EBABEELIKES50
(Sorry, the discount is only valid for UK readers but US readers can still get the Leesa mattress)

Do you have any tips for a better nights sleep especially for us parents?