Only 6% of women with children under the age of 6 are getting the recommended 8 hours sleep per night. If this is you, congratulations, I kinda hate you, and feel free to leave $4.10 for my much-needed daily takeaway coffee (large, skim, double-shot) on the table as you politely click off this page.

For everyone else, here’s 5 simple things to do before you go to bed* to ensure you’ll look just that little bit more beautiful when the alarm** goes off.

1. Be a scrubber

Exfoliating not only helps the skin glow by removing dead cells, but sloughing at night helps to boost the penetration of any treatments you apply afterward. And if you tend to be more vigorous while exfoliating (or if you have sensitive skin), you’ll have the night for any redness and blotchiness to subside.

2. Soften up

A beautiful hand cream applied before you switch off the bedside lamp is a great idea, but don’t forget your other rough spots. Apply moisturiser to your elbows and knees – they’ll probably need extra care from playing on the floor with your little ones – and keep some heel balm handy to treat sore, hard, cracked heels.

3. Banish bed head

While bed head can look fab when photographed with filters and a super-cute smile (we’re looking at you Nicole Ritchie), real-life bed hair is often just frizzy and silly-looking. Invest in a satin pillow case as it’ll create less friction than cotton, and will minimise the morning frizzies.

Nicole Ritchie’s Morning Hair

4. Puff your pillow

Your kids are not always to blame for baggy eyes in the morning. If your pillow is too flat, fluid can gather around your eyes. So add an extra pillow, or switch to a larger one, and sleep on your back so the excess fluid can drain.

5. Don’t plan for sleep

When your kids are little, it’s guaranteed that you won’t be getting as much sleep as you’d like. Instead of getting grumpy and grouchy about it each night, try to simply accept it. This way, you can be pleasantly surprised when you do get a stretch of uninterrupted sleep. The added beauty benefit? The less you frown, the less those frown lines become etched into your face. Because a happy face is a beautiful face, right?

And if you try these tips and still end up carrying oversized under-eye baggage, check out our 12 Ways To Fake Awake.

Want more overnight beauty tips? This simple trick with an old stocking and a stiff drink will give you fab hair overnight.

*notice how I said ‘to bed’, not ‘too sleep’?

We all know these are two different things,

with the sleep part almost guaranteed to be interrupted.

**the alarm being the child that wakes up first and cries out the loudest.

What beauty treatments, tricks, lotions or potions do you indulge in before you hit the hay? What do you absolutely swear by? And how many hours of sleep are you getting by on these days?

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