VERITY LUSH: Parenting is too subjectiveto enforce others' opinions

Various studies were carried out and cited, all of which pointed towards how a certain amount of sleep is vital to our general well-being.

The performance of kids in schools was demonstrated to suffer a negative effect if they weren’t sleeping enough. As an adult or a parent, we are all familiar with the eyes-on-strings sensation that too little snooze can give.

It’s often when becoming a parent that you simultaneously become aware of why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture.

But, as the programme suggested, children do not always automatically know how to sleep. Some need to be trained.

When my eldest daughter was born she merrily snoozed all day, eyes opening like a tiny Nosferatu as soon as sundown occurred, refusing to sleep again or be put down anywhere that resembled a Moses basket or sleeping area.

We eventually resorted to controlled crying, which worked a treat, although it was emotional hell for the week it took to work.

But a week is nothing – some of the parents on this programme hadn’t slept for years and years.

Studies were also cited that claimed leaving a child to cry has no detrimental long-term effect. Parents should make it clear that they are present, the child has not been deserted, but should engage in no spoken interaction.

Allowing a baby to cry is different to making it cry. However, there will always be two sides to this and people who disagree.

Each to their own in the school of parenting – it’s far too subjective to enforce opinions. Rods for our own backs and all that.

The main contributory factor in lack of sleep was the use of tablets and tech before bedtime. Screen addiction in a child’s developing brain has been shown to do extreme harm, and obviously stimulates the brain, which isn’t rocket science. But for some of the people featured, it was far easier said than done. As is most parenting in general!

MOONLIGHT MAY HAVE WON, BUT LA LA LAND IS MORE ACCURATE

At last with the 2017 Oscars ceremony came some celebrity news that didn’t involve one of them popping their clogs in an untimely fashion, reportedly sleeping with Taylor Swift or having their lips pumped up to the size of a couple of bouncy balls.

On and on went the kerfuffle, with accountants from the firm in charge of the vote-counting, Price Waterhouse Something or Other, having to provide protection for the terrible twosome that made the (actually entirely non-heinous) mistake of handing out the wrong envelope.

Apparently, they are receiving death threats for being human.

The film that won the Oscar may have been entitled Moonlight, but La La Land is clearly the more accurate of the two.

SO WHO’LL DO THE COOKING, THE CLEANING AND WASHING-UP?

With a fortnight to Mother’s Day, mums everywhere will know what’s coming.

The homemade cards, the little gifts, or perhaps a hungover youth because your kids are older and don’t know their own name before midday on a Sunday, let alone yours.

The other thing that the mummies know is coming is The Post-Mother’s Day Mess.

This is the state the house gets into because your kids and partner lovingly suggest you ‘take it easy’.

All well and good – but who does the cooking, cleaning and washing-up instead?

Houses everywhere, come Monday March 27, will look like a grenade has been lobbed at them and mothers will be cursing their ‘rest day’ when it comes to finding clean school socks.