You know he’s tired when your husband confuses you with your daughter… of eight months.

Last week, I plopped down onto the sofa, baby in arms ready for a feed, and asked my husband to pass me a bib. Ever obliging, he brought it over and proceeded absentmindedly to tie the thing around my neck. Once I realised this was not a joke and got over the hysterics that ensued, it struck me just how tired he must be. And how tired I am. All the time.

I can’t really blame sleep deprivation – Alice is a pretty decent sleeper. So I don’t need to read yet another book/lecturing tome with a catchy title like “How to get your baby to sleep wherever and whenever you want, including 15 hours a night plus at least five daytime naps”. The truth is that even when you sleep well, the very act of being a parent is itself tiring. Pushing the buggy, carrying the increasingly heavy baby, tidying toys, endless loads of washing, the constant vigilance any time you put the baby down, the permanent nagging worry about [choking/illness/normal brain development/school options/inappropriate friends] *delete as appropriate.

So the only way forward is to accept the tiredness and to adjust life accordingly. Because fighting fatigue is itself exhausting.

Here are the fatigue-accepting commandments that work for me:

1. I no longer stay up late.

Other parents of small children are not merrily quaffing Bordeaux in front of a good film until midnight. They are, like me, falling asleep in front of the TV using their spouse as a human pillow. Suck it up, record the movie, and go up to bed while you still have the energy to brush your teeth.

A sub-section to that: I limit my alcohol intake. Pre-children, most evenings involved a glass of wine with husband or a friend – we live in France, for heaven’s sake! Now, that glass of wine will cause me to pass out even earlier than usual, so it needs to be kept for weekends and occasions.

2. I lighten my day.

I am a list person. And I like getting through my list each day. I now accept that what I can and cannot get done is no longer solely dependent on me; and that I usually won’t get it all done. And that’s ok, because the unwritten task on every list I’ll ever make from now on is “take care of child while doing all the other stuff”, and if that one gets done well, then we’re doing all right.

3. I choose when I do my thinking.

I’m unwell, daughter is ill, husband is away for work, and sleep was a pipe dream last night. Now is not the time to start finding solutions to the Great Babysitter Conundrum. Nor is it the moment to consider school choices (did I mention she’s eight months old?), examine our financial future, make a new business plan. Because, in a sleep-deprived state there are no decent schools; we’ll be penniless, destitute, by the time we’re 40. And my business plan looks rather like the Titanic – a great idea that will ultimately lead to my doom. I put those issues to one side and tackle them once we’ve all had a bit more sleep and a calming cuppa.

4. I have stopped talking about the tiredness.

The above notwithstanding. One day a coaching client was in the middle of a diatribe about how shattered she was when it occurred to me to ask, in all sincerity: “Is talking about it helping you?” I am not recommending we “lean in”, but does complaining to the spouse or competing with other mothers (“I was up all night – got about 30 minutes sleep – not even sure how I’m still alive, really”) make you feel any better?

So, in a definite case of “Coach, coach thyself”, these are my strategies for coping with a fatigue that I have accepted will be with me for at least the next 21 years.