Katrina Tweedie
Sleep is an essential part of a child’s needs – as vital as shelter or even food
NOTHING is as blissful as your own bed after a week or two away.
I have been known to travel with my pillow, a medical grade, hard-as-steel memory foam block that miraculously fixes my neck every night.
Even when I climb into bed like Quasimodo, clutching my shoulder and bent double after a day hunched over a computer screen, by dawn my spine is straight again.
But thanks to losing my suitcase in our chaotic attic on holiday last week, I had to take an ancient case which alone accounted for most of my weight allowance and meant the brick pillow had to stay behind.
A mini travel version of my pillow failed spectacularly – it was so small I lost it somewhere in the bed every night.
Each night, the twinge in my back deepened until, on the final day, as I tried to lift the suitcase, it finally twanged.
Thankfully, my own bed and miracle pillow have solved the problem better than two paracetamol and a glass of wine.
So it’s shocking to hear this week that 420,000 children in the UK do not have a bed of their own to sleep in.
Some share with siblings or they sleep on the floor, according to the charity Buttle UK, whose boss Gerri McAndrew has written to the worst-affected local authorities to ask them to tackle the problem.
Sleep is such a basic part of a child or young person’s needs – as essential as shelter, stability, even food and nourishment.
There is extensive research that shows the necessity of good, healthy sleep for brain development in children. “We all really need our bed and for a child it’s incredibly important that they are allowed to rest,” said Gerri. “If they don’t get sleep, they are going into school tired and unable to concentrate. “If you don’t have a bed, you are embarrassed, you don’t want to invite your friends home and it limits your childhood in many ways.” The charity have broken down the number of children without a bed by local authority and it’s awful to see there are children living in my own postcode without a bed, including more than 4000 in Glasgow alone. Now Dreams Beds have joined forces with Buttle and, for every bed bought, they will donate a bed to a child in need. It all puts my reliance on a very expensive pillow in perspective.