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Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

motherjones.com

441–450 of 528 posts

Re: Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A key lesson I learned with our first child was "just about everything gets easier once you leave the hospital", so with our second we prioritized GTFOing ASAP. It was a good decision.

Our experience would not have been different (Austria). Especially with the first kid going from hospital home was a bit regretful because of all the services you get in the hospital you need to replace at home. We had a family room for me, my wife and the newborn. They served food, there were replacement clothes and diapers in unlimited supply, no washing etc. With the second we opted for having only two days in the…

I would have been happy to stay in a private room for longer too, I've been around young children a lot since I have a large family, but being responsible for a newborn was a scary prospect to get used to.

Regarding food my overriding memory of being the father in Finland was that we'd get food delivered to the room and each plate was labeled. Half the meals had the mother's full-name written on them. The other half just said "man".

I'm sure they took my name at some point, as I was registered as the parent in the country-wide population index, but as far as the hospital was concerned I was just "man".

(In Finnish the word for man & husband are the same, so perhaps I was "husband" rather than "man"!)

Re: Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

#442
post #439
post #228

I'll push this one step further: why is our entire society built around the idea that sleep literally doesn't matter? - Elementary school starting so early all the kids are half asleep in class. - College + Sleep? Not gonna happen. - 24 hour construction in certain part of NYC, check! - Most cities quiet hours are very precisely 8 hours. Hope your days start at 6:30/7:00 and you're falling asleep precisely at 11pm, a…

> Elementary school starting so early all the kids are half asleep in class Isn't the amount of sleep you get determined by when you go to sleep? So if elementary school kids need more sleep just... put them to bed earlier?

While I think most elementary school kids probably should be put to bed earlier (even if their school doesn't start so early), it's easier said than done. Imagine having to get home from your commute, feed your family, getting the older siblings to/from extracurriculars and then getting the elementary school ones to bed by 7:00/8:00pm.

Re: Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be a patient and be so sick of the noise that you decide you want to opt out of the monitoring - or you DIY anyway, as most hospital do not take requests kindly. I was once in ICU. The cardiac monitor was beeping loudly whenever I was starting to sleep. After the first few time woke me up in pain, I bent over and pushed the button to power off the cardiac monitor. Problem solved! I fully admitted all the risk…

Did you check to see if the cardiac monitor was set up to prevent you sleeping?

I didn't care. I wanted to sleep. And I did.

Re: Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter-anecdote, we have to get our kids up by 7:30 to get them to their elementary school on time, and it's a battle every single morning. Left to their own devices, they would sleep to at least 8:30. Kids are different, and we really don't have very good ways of dealing with that in some ways...

So, maybe they would benefit from an earlier bedtime? Not being snarky, am a parent myself.

Anecdotally based on my kid (n=1), stopping screen time about an hour before bedtime helps.

However, she still seems wired to fall sleep at a certain time, and we finally decided that fighting biology is a losing battle. The strategy of moving bedtime a little bit earlier each day didn't work at all.

Re: Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

#445
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I mean, I get that hospitals are 24-hour operations that need doctors & nurses available at all times. So some people are going to get the crap end of that stick and have to do night shifts. But is it really necessary for them to work 80+ hours while they're at it? It seems like there's enough people trying to be doctors that you could cut that down to a healthier 40 hours+ 15 hours on call if it's really neces…

You would likely have to extend residency based on everything that you need to learn for a given specialty. Med school graduates have an average of over $180k in student loan debt - from med school alone - and resident salaries in the 2-4 year programs are mid five figures. Given the choice, I'm not sure someone whose 4-year earning potential is capped at $60k with $200k in student loans would want to extend that to…

You may want to look into why med school is so expensive, compared to other majors.

Re: Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

#446
post #285
post #228

I'll push this one step further: why is our entire society built around the idea that sleep literally doesn't matter? - Elementary school starting so early all the kids are half asleep in class. - College + Sleep? Not gonna happen. - 24 hour construction in certain part of NYC, check! - Most cities quiet hours are very precisely 8 hours. Hope your days start at 6:30/7:00 and you're falling asleep precisely at 11pm, a…

My wife's background is in childhood development. Her job involves keeping up with studies in the field. I remember her talking about this issue. There's evidence that school start times should be flipped for elementary and high school students: elementary going in earlier and high school later. Teenagers need more sleep due to their brains re-wiring, so the reasoning goes. Keep in mind that in our school district, e…

I'm envious. My high school started at 7:17am. It was brutal.

Re: Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

#447
post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue for the kids is time related to sunrise, not time related to when the parents go to work. Is that what it is? I thought it was total sleep duration. Do you have a link explaining more?

> I thought it was total sleep duration. They're related. If you go to sleep at the same time (relative to actual-midnight) and get up an hour before school, you get more sleep when school starts later. Or else what difference would any of it make? If all you did was start school at 9:30 instead of 7:30 and then kids used that to go to bed two hours later, nothing has changed. But when people go to sleep (and are inc…

If you go to sleep at the same time (relative to actual-midnight) and get up an hour before school, you get more sleep when school starts later.

That still doesn't seem all that helpful. If my high school had started at 10 instead of 8, I'd be out of class at 5:30 instead of 3:30, done with fencing practice at 8 instead of 6, etc. I'd finish the night's homework two hours later, and finishing that was already well past sundown even on the original schedule. A later start time wouldn't have been an opportunity to stay up later -- it would have been an obligation to stay up later.

Re: Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the school bus pick him up more than an hour before school starts? That seems ridiculous.

Where I grew up the high school was a 45 minute drive away. We would get picked up an hour early so there was a little leeway in case of traffic.

Same, in Indiana. High school started at 7:45, bus picked up at 6:45.

Re: Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

#449
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife's background is in childhood development. Her job involves keeping up with studies in the field. I remember her talking about this issue. There's evidence that school start times should be flipped for elementary and high school students: elementary going in earlier and high school later. Teenagers need more sleep due to their brains re-wiring, so the reasoning goes. Keep in mind that in our school district, e…

As a counter-anecdote, we have to get our kids up by 7:30 to get them to their elementary school on time, and it's a battle every single morning. Left to their own devices, they would sleep to at least 8:30. Kids are different, and we really don't have very good ways of dealing with that in some ways...

If the schools are fun and a great experience, the kids would wake up at 5 for school. The schools are so boring and useless, the kids obviously find no use or interest in attending them.

Re: Why Do Hospitals Hate Sleep So Much?

#450
post #228

I'll push this one step further: why is our entire society built around the idea that sleep literally doesn't matter? - Elementary school starting so early all the kids are half asleep in class. - College + Sleep? Not gonna happen. - 24 hour construction in certain part of NYC, check! - Most cities quiet hours are very precisely 8 hours. Hope your days start at 6:30/7:00 and you're falling asleep precisely at 11pm, a…

My theory is that there is an eternal secret war between morning people and evening people and the morning people are winning. Resistance must be done in secret but fight back in every way you can.

It's because they keep getting the worm.
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