Mothers who have it all, except sleep

Mars Webb, 34, is a publicrelations officer with a communications company. She lives in Streatham with her husband, Patrick, a male model, and her two children, Tess, four, and Thomas, 18 months. Mars works four days a week and describes herself as a bit of a domestic goddess. When she's not baking or doing the vacuum cleaning, she likes socialising with friends and their children, or getting out of London for the weekend with her family.

5.30am Thomas wakes up.

6.15am I get ready for work.

7.45am I leave for work. When my husband isn't working, he drops Tess off at her Montessori nursery and looks after Thomas. Otherwise, we rely on a network of friends to look after the kids - some of them are professional childminders and we are very lucky in that we can usually find someone to step into the breach.

8.30am I try to get in at 8.30 so I can leave at 5.30. My job is very busy and demanding, and it is client-based, meaning that I have to be on the ball and upbeat all the time. It's a very competitive industry and there are always deadlines. I try to get in at 7.30am one day a week, and do one late night - that way I don't feel too guilty about letting down the rest of my team, none of whom have children. I very rarely get a lunchhour, unless it's a working one.

5.30pm I jog to the station - that's my exercise for the day.

6.30pm I arrive home in time for bathtime and bedtime.

7pm-8pm The children go down to sleep. I have always been lucky with Tess in that she has had a good sleeping pattern, although she sometimes gets night terrors and comes into our bed (we have a super-kingsize). I think I was more strict with her as a tiny baby and always put her back in her Moses basket after I'd breastfed her. With Thomas, I got into the habit of letting him fall asleep on my chest or tummy, and maybe that has made a difference. He is suffering from terrible separation anxiety at the moment and if he gets really upset, he starts banging his head against the bars of his cot.

9pm Quite often I bring home work, so I spend an hour doing that and picking up e-mails from overseas. My husband and I always cook a proper meal, and sit down together. We don't watch a lot of telly. Thomas often wakes up again at about 9pm and needs his back rubbed to go back to sleep again.

10.30pm If I've had a bad night the night before, I'm in bed by 10.30pm.

1.30am Thomas is teething at the moment, so he usually wakes up again about this time, and again at 3.30am. Until he was nine months, he suffered from colic and was awake and crying every night from 2.30 to 5.30am. I had gone back to work when he was five months, and that was the stage I was having car accidents because I was so tired.

These days I still sometimes feel physically sick with tiredness when I wake up in the morning. I think I pick up colds more frequently, and I'm probably a bit grumpier and more bad-tempered with people. When Thomas was first born, Patrick refused to do nights because he gets big bags under his eyes and he said he'd never get any work if he looked exhausted. But for the past six months he's looked after him most of the time during the day and he's very good with him. The trouble is that, at night, I'm often the one Thomas wants.

Average hours sleep a night: five
Broken: twice
Downtime, with husband, without children: one hour

Philippa Ross, 28, works full time as a PA for a fashion company. She lives in Highgate with her husband Roy, an antiques dealer, and their daughter, Leila, of 17 months, whom they have just taken abroad for the first time. Philippa says motherhood hasn't stopped her doing anything and she still enjoys nights out.

5.30am to 6am Leila wakes up. If she's really bawling, she comes into bed with us and has a bottle..

8.15am I leave for work, arriving at my desk at 9am. On Mondays and Fridays, I take Leila with me and drop her off at the nursery, which is just round the corner from where I work. For the rest of the week Roy looks after her. If he has to go to an auction, he takes her with him.

9am to 6.30pm My work is manic, and I have no time to think about Leila. Luckily my bosses both have children and they are brilliant about the days I have to leave at 5.30 to pick her up from nursery.

7.15pm By the time I get home Leila has usually had her dinner, but we have a bath together and some play and cuddle time. She gets very excited when I get home, so I have to be careful not to overexcite her, otherwise she won't do down.

8.30pm We put her in her cot. Depending on how she's feeling, she might have a good old wail for 20 minutes, but then she'll usually go to sleep.

9pm We sit down and have supper, I stick some washing in, make some calls if I have to, generally potter about.

11pm I go to bed - we have a big sleigh bed and my husband teases me that I'm always trying to slope off early to get into it.

2am Leila wakes up. Ever since she started at nursery in February she seems to pick up constant bugs and infections. If she's sick, she tends to wake up in the early hours of the morning - just when I'm in a deep sleep. I have to bring her into bed, but then she thinks it's play time and jumps around on me for two hours.

4am We all finally get back to sleep again.

I can't remember the last time I had a full night's sleep. By Saturday I am very tired and I try to do as little as possible at the weekend. But I am pretty resilient and my husband is very understanding and helpful.

You just have to get on with it.

Average hours of sleep a night: four and a half
Broken: once
Downtime with husband, without child: two hours

Janine Hogan, 44, is an executive director at London PR company Sante Communications. She lives near Reading with her second husband Martin and their two children, Tommy, 22 months, and Antonia, eight months. Family life has to be run to a strict schedule: Janine works anything between four and six days a week, dividing her time between home and the office.

5.30am On days when I have to go into the office, I get up in plenty of time to wash my hair and get the kids' stuff ready for when my nanny arrives.

6.50am I leave the house to drive to Reading station, where I catch the 7.19 into Paddington. From there I get the Tube to work.

8.40am I arrive at my desk. I tend to skip my lunch break and colleagues bring me back a sandwich.

7pm I try to leave the office by this time, but I am often held up quite late - it depends how busy we are.

9.30pm I arrive back home. The children will have been bathed and put to bed at 7.30pm. I'm lucky - my husband cooks supper.

There are various jobs I like to do before I go to bed - sterilising the babies' bottles for the next day, and wiping down all the surfaces with Domestos (we have a cleaner but she only comes once a week). I also check my e-mails.

10pm I'm rarely in bed later than 10.30pm, but that's just when Tommy wakes up for the first time. He has always been a dreadful sleeper. He just needs a stroke and some reassurance and then he will go back down. Often Martin will go to him, but if I am in a very deep sleep it takes me an hour to go back off again.

4am Antonia almost always sleeps through the night, but Tommy wakes again at 4am. By this stage, if it's a working day, it is barely worth my while trying to go back to sleep again.

Luckily, I am hyperactive. My partner and I rarely go out to socialise now. I'd prefer to be in bed than living it up at a party. We tend to have people over instead, and I love entertaining at home.

Average hours sleep a night: four
Broken: twice
Downtime with partner, without children: one hour