Richard Hearn plans some tactical sleeping

I was hoping to announce my ‘Sleep Equation for Under-Fives’ today. Most parents probably do this (unknowingly) in their heads, calculating the likelihood on any given day, that their child will go to sleep at the appropriate time. Not before. Not after. There are a number of factors involved, which I’ll come onto in a moment. I reckon that with the right division, multiplication and maybe even a Latin symbol, I could come up with something universal.

“The ideal scenario, plainly, is that no sleep has occurred”

Trouble is, it’s at the end of the day, and I’m a bit tired. So rather than announce the solution, I’ll do what my old maths teacher would have wanted me to do, and show you my working. What makes it into the calculation?

Amount of sleep in the day is obviously the major one. The ideal scenario, plainly, is that no sleep has occurred. On these days, there’s a desperate attempt to achieve the end-of-the-day tasks; feeding, bathing, and locating them in proximity to where they’re supposed to be sleeping – but get it right, and you’re onto a winner.

This strategy is risky. It’s what my old history teacher used to call a ‘High Dive’. The danger is you get within sight of the finish line, and then they suddenly fall into a deep, refreshing sleep just as you’re serving up their tea.

So Plan B – and let’s face it, Plan A has hardly any resonance in parenthood – is that they have a short, early sleep, followed by an exhausting afternoon. As journeys of any type are generally sleep-inducing, this can mean you have to time any trip with military precision.

I bet you’re thinking, where’s the maths in all of this? Well, in the Plan B scenario, they’ve had a nap. Let’s examine that nap. We’ll divide it into length of nap and timing of nap. We’ve mentioned short and early, but you might also have long and early, short and late, or – and it really is the Doomsday Scenario – long and late. You multiply the two together, and I reckon you want a small number. Yes, OK, so the maths bit is hazy.

Then you have to factor in their excess energy. If they’ve been sitting fairly still, doing nothing much at all, their energy has not been depleted. Bad. If instead they’ve gone swimming, followed by a children’s party, then their energy will be well near the zero zone.

Good, but risky. Get them to the zero zone too early, and they’ll have a badly-timed power nap in the wrong BN postcode.

So there we have it. All things being equal, your under-five should be asleep. And if they’re not, read them this week’s column. That should do it.