WOMEN HAVE twice as many nightmares as men do, according to a survey conducted by hotel chain Travelodge. I'm convinced it's due to those butterfly thoughts that flit madly as we try to drift off. Thoughts such as: damn, I forgot to check if the nit lotion worked. Has he infected the whole school? Can I pretend we didn't know? Did I pay the school-trip deposit in time or will he be left behind in an empty classroom with a grumbling radiator? Will he hate me for this? I forgot to ring my mother. What did she ask me to do yesterday? Where did I put my mobile phone, and why won't it ring when I call it?

I know, I know - it's hardly life‑changing stuff. No-one is likely to call the police if you send your child to school with a packet of Monster Munch, forgetting that it's Healthy Snack Day, when playpieces are forensically examined and detailed on a massive chart - but that's the kind of mental clutter I'm talking about. Is it any wonder we toss and turn at night? Or that one in five couples sleeps apart? One female friend calls it "the 4am mental panic" when she wakes with a jolt as she realises her child's only footwear has yet to be cleansed after being peed on by a cat. In the small hours, cat-pee trainers feel like a national emergency.

In an attempt to banish the clutter, I try to use lists to remember things so I never again send one of my sons on a Scouts day trip without a packed lunch and have him return to announce, rather bitterly: "It was all right because someone gave me a bite of their biscuit."

I nearly died of hunger, is what he was really saying. What are you trying to do? Stunt my growth? Give me rickets? Yet lists can add to the general confusion. Yesterday, for instance, mine included "train tickets", "haircuts", "trout" and, unfathomably, "Sven-Goran Eriksson".

You'd think that managing several children's lives would make a parent fall asleep the minute their head hits the pillow. However, as I try to drift off, I realise something is wrong. The Sleep Council suggests we should "create a restful sleeping environment," yet, glancing around our bedroom, I realise that things are not as they should be. My wardrobe is open and a guddle of clothes are lying on the floor, suggesting that it was recently used as a hiding place. J's mandolin - a prized possession - is poking out of our laundry basket. "Your bedroom should be kept for rest and sleep," advises the Sleep Council. Ours has clearly been invaded, possibly for a game of hide and seek.

I have always wanted other people's kids to feel welcome in our house, but not to the extent where they hide in close proximity to my knickers. It's overstepping the mark. Like the child you invite for tea who demands that you spend an hour frying pancakes, then retorts that they're "different from the ones my mum makes," which means, loosely translated, "they are horrible".

Mainly, though, I am lying awake worrying about my mobile phone. We functioned perfectly well without them a decade ago, and I was cursing mine yesterday when it went off in my bag as we walked home from school. As I scrabbled about for it, a tampon leapt from my bag and rolled down the pavement. "It's okay," chirped my daughter's friend. "My mum uses those too."

"Does she?" I asked with exaggerated interest, as if she'd said, "My mum breeds llamas." I took the call as I walked the kids home, which was awkward as it was a features editor from a women's magazine who wanted to commission a feature about sex.

"Yep, yep," I kept saying in a strangled way.

"Can I have an ice cream?" my daughter demanded.

Now, at around 3.30am, I wonder if I might be better off without a mobile and live a simpler life, like in the olden days - until it hits me where I put it. It's in the fridge with the trout. Ah yes, of course.