Forget research into ground-breaking issues or to find answers to age-old questions, one academic's study found fatigued fathers posed a safety risk in the workplace and Chris Harrison is "tired" of being told what he already knows.

"I should have had kids years ago, when i was indulging myself travelling the world or wasting time watching cricket"

Last week my boss pointed in my direction and casually informed me that I'm a health and safety hazard.

I surveyed my tidy workstation and presumed he was referring to the cables you could perhaps trip over if you limboed under my desk, the Post-it notes on my monitor that might obstruct the off button in a cyclone shut down emergency, or the scribblings of my three-year-old daughter that I've sticky-taped to my computer and which, at a stretch, could perhaps cause it to overheat.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

It tuns out I'm a hazard because of the fact I am a father, and according to a recent Southern Cross University study, tired dads pose a risk in the workplace.

Some academics are responsible for ground-breaking research, some advance age-old debates, and some tell you things you kinda knew already, such as sleep-deprivation makes you climsy sorry clumsy.

I'm so sleep-deprived I've employed matchsticks to keep my eyes open, which might explain why they're burning.

Though a more likely explanation would be the fact I have two children under the age of four and haven't slept since their date of manufacture. If you could buy sleep I'd be broke.

My darling daughter recently woke me at 2am. For a euphoric second I thought it was morning and we had miraculously slept through. Then I realised it was a clear night and the moon was mocking me through the curtains.

As usual, I tried to ignore her in the hope she would realise the absurdity of the hour and take pity on me.

As usual, she didn't.

Then things turned decidedly unusual. I could tell by her tone of voice - a mix of panic and surging tears.

"Daddy," she said, "I've got a sultana in my nose."

I have been snatched from slumber for a variety of reasons, including the branch of the tree I was sleeping in giving way. Never has dried fruit in a facial orifice been among my first conscious thoughts, if I was in fact, conscious.

I sat on the edge of the bed and held my daughter's size three hands. Even mundane scenarios are confusing when your head has left the pillow but your brain is still on it. Several possibilities fought their way through the fog:

1 - We do have Sultana Bran in the pantry, but surely she hadn't been out there ferreting about or I would have heard her.
2 - Perhaps she had dreamt there was a sultana in her nostril.
3 - That doctor in Western Australia who said parents should have children while still young wasn't such as crackpot after all.

There have been some weird and wacky theories coming out of WA recently, including the racist implications of flying the Aussie flag from a car, (excluding imported cars, I presume) and Dr Barry Walters from Perth's King Edward Memorial Hospital suggesting that having children at a younger age in life is better for all concerned.

Dr Walters was widely criticised, though at times I think he is right. Times such as when - as a 40-year-old father - I am lowering my nine-month-old son into his cot and that herniated disc in my lower back shrieks, "Hello". Or when I am driving to work drinking Red Bull after another sleepless night, or when I can't pick up my daughter for the pain of tennis elbow. (I can't remember the last time I played tennis, but my elbow can).

I should have had kids years ago, when I was indulging myself travelling the world or wasting time watching cricket. I didn't have a herniated disc back then. In fact, the only doctor I knew from WA before Barry Walters was the Fremantle Doctor, who I imagine would be the wrong one to go to for wind.

Life was a breeze back then, but I wasn't married to the person with whom I hope to spend the rest of my life (if she forgives me for that wind joke) and surely that is better for our kids than the fact I creak in certain places and take longer to recover from a bad night's sleep.

Sleep deprivation is a form of torture, though it can't be described as a nightmare because you need to be asleep to have a nightmare. It makes you impatient when you need to be patient, negative when you need to be positive, confused when you need to think clearly, and susceptible to illness when you need to be superman.

Friends and family have taken sympathy. We now have no fewer than six copies of Go the F**k to Sleep, the bestselling "children's book for adults". We also have a clock that plays lullabies and projects multicoloured stars on the ceiling, but when bedtime finally arrives, I'm already seeing stars.

A colleague recently drew what little attention I have left to "the nap app" - an iPhone application which plays ambient sounds to help nippers nod off. But nodding off isn't our problem, it's sustaining slumber once asleep, hence the recent sultana saga.

By now my wife was also awake so we discussed the possibilities in hushed voices. Whichever way we looked at it, we had a problem:

1 - If she's got into the pantry and shoved a sultana up her nose, we have a problem.
2 - If she's dreamt there is a sultana up her nose and woke up thinking it's a reality, we've got a problem.
3 - If she's just pretending to have a sultana up her nose, we've got a problem.

I'm thinking of calling my wife Houston.

Once you turn the light on the night is officially over. With much reluctance, I flicked the switch, reflecting on the absurdity of parenthood as I tilted my daughter's head back and peered up her nose.

Proof I am still sane was the instant rejection of the idea of inserting tweezers. Evidence that sanity is slipping away was teaching my daughter the Bushman's Blow at 2am.

Children change your life in ways you never dreamed. They also change your dreams, if they concede you them.

And just to pre-empt the next wacky study from WA, sultanas are the real health and safety hazard.

There wasn't one, by the way. Perhaps I dreamt it.

Err, Houston.

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