Jacques Peretti's down with the kids

A friend of mine is due to be a father imminently. I hope he doesn't stumble across this - a painful read on child-related insomnia.

But the lack of sleep? That's not a breeze. That's wrong. I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of insomnia. Over the years, I have sampled its many-splendoured tortures, but I have to say that baby-related sleep deprivation has a quality all of its own. It's far stranger and druggier than drug-induced insomnia, where you just lie there gibbering tediously and imagining you're Jesus on the cross or a giant fern tree.

Or anxiety-based insomnia, where you lie there worrying about why yesterday Colin from accounts said, " SOME people are not pulling their weight round here," instead of simply, "Some people are not pulling their weight round here." Why " SOME people"? Who-some? Me-some? Play the phrase back 20 or 30,000 times, trying to decipher its infinite nuances, like Gene Hackman in The Conversation. You imagine Colin's face in slow-mo, stressing "some" in different ways, you imagine his head on a 50p piece, spinning in space, and then you kill him with an imaginary spike, and go to sleep. Except you don't go to sleep.

For an alternative hell, you may wish to try insomnia-based insomnia, where you lie there worrying that you're not sleeping because you don't have anything to worry about. It's tedious, and worrying, and before long you have anxiety-based insomnia, which at least means you have a specific focus to your night.

You can read the whole rant here.