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Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

bbc.com

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Re: Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

#11

Post by wiseowise »

andrepd wrote: post #10
wiseowise wrote: post #6

[flagged]

> On average, the German study, which looked at nearly 40,000 people in total, found that parents who had at least one child under six years old reported sleeping about seven hours per night. Non-parents received just 10 minutes more sleep per night, for women, and 14 minutes more per night, for men. I'll trade 15 minutes of sleep for a lifetime of joy, thank you :)

> on average

Not sure where are those lucky ones, but I've met half a dozen parents that became literal zombies during the first years because of a lack of sleep. From what they've reported, 2 hours is a lucky night. It does get better later on, after 2(!) years.

Re: Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

#12

Post by MarkSweep »

rahidz wrote: post #7
jonplackett wrote: post #5

> One study, for example, found that first-time mothers in Germany on average get an hour less of sleep per night in the first three months after their baby is born than they did pre-pregnancy. Fathers lose a third of an hour. Yeah but how many times were they woken up in the night? With a baby you might still get 8 hours total but you’re woken up 4 times a night which makes that sleep way less effective.

According to the article: "It's not that modern parents are waking up more often. Work by Samson and others has found that people in hunter-gatherer societies usually wake more frequently through the night than we do." But I think there's a difference between waking up at night because your baby is crying, calming them down, going back to sleep, etc etc. when you have a 9-to-5 job, versus if you're a hunter-gatherer.

To put a name to it, “biphasic sleep” used to be more common:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieva...

Re: Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

#13

Post by binary132 »

Speaking as a working father and stay at home mom couple, our lives completely revolve around the baby’s needs for many months after birth. I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to try to support both a newborn and each other as a dual-earning family. But I do think our arrangement, including cosleeping, and her not needing to be at work early, has helped immensely overall with our sleep.

Re: Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

#14

Post by lumost »

rahidz wrote: post #7
jonplackett wrote: post #5

> One study, for example, found that first-time mothers in Germany on average get an hour less of sleep per night in the first three months after their baby is born than they did pre-pregnancy. Fathers lose a third of an hour. Yeah but how many times were they woken up in the night? With a baby you might still get 8 hours total but you’re woken up 4 times a night which makes that sleep way less effective.

According to the article: "It's not that modern parents are waking up more often. Work by Samson and others has found that people in hunter-gatherer societies usually wake more frequently through the night than we do." But I think there's a difference between waking up at night because your baby is crying, calming them down, going back to sleep, etc etc. when you have a 9-to-5 job, versus if you're a hunter-gatherer.

The 9-5 is doing a major part of that comment. Irregular sleep isn’t the end of the world if you can sleep in and recover. Modern parents don’t get a chance to recover.

Re: Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

#15

Post by cullumsmith »

wiseowise wrote: post #11
andrepd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On average, the German study, which looked at nearly 40,000 people in total, found that parents who had at least one child under six years old reported sleeping about seven hours per night. Non-parents received just 10 minutes more sleep per night, for women, and 14 minutes more per night, for men. I'll trade 15 minutes of sleep for a lifetime of joy, thank you :)

> on average Not sure where are those lucky ones, but I've met half a dozen parents that became literal zombies during the first years because of a lack of sleep. From what they've reported, 2 hours is a lucky night. It does get better later on, after 2(!) years.

I have five children and find this very difficult to believe. Even the "worst" of it (age 0-3 months) was never anything close to that bad.

Re: Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

#16

Post by aprilthird2021 »

irishcoffee wrote: post #2

All the single-working parents I know don’t have this complaint. The dual-working couples do. Seems pretty straightforward. Clearly my anecdotes do not apply to the rest of globe, just my observation.

Sure, likewise, if you live in a multi generational household, raising kids is a lot easier on average.

But most people cannot have those things in modern Euromerican nations

Re: Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

#17

Post by phoronixrly »

andrepd wrote: post #10
wiseowise wrote: post #6

[flagged]

> On average, the German study, which looked at nearly 40,000 people in total, found that parents who had at least one child under six years old reported sleeping about seven hours per night. Non-parents received just 10 minutes more sleep per night, for women, and 14 minutes more per night, for men. I'll trade 15 minutes of sleep for a lifetime of joy, thank you :)

A person's definition of a 'lifetime of joy' may exclude caring for children.

Re: Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

#18

Post by zhivota »

rahidz wrote: post #7
jonplackett wrote: post #5

> One study, for example, found that first-time mothers in Germany on average get an hour less of sleep per night in the first three months after their baby is born than they did pre-pregnancy. Fathers lose a third of an hour. Yeah but how many times were they woken up in the night? With a baby you might still get 8 hours total but you’re woken up 4 times a night which makes that sleep way less effective.

According to the article: "It's not that modern parents are waking up more often. Work by Samson and others has found that people in hunter-gatherer societies usually wake more frequently through the night than we do." But I think there's a difference between waking up at night because your baby is crying, calming them down, going back to sleep, etc etc. when you have a 9-to-5 job, versus if you're a hunter-gatherer.

I spend a lot of time in the rural Philippines and I notice that locals out here don't sleep that well and it doesn't seem to bother them. They get up extremely early with the sun, roosters are crowing even before that, cats are fighting randomly through the night, storms kick up many nights in the area through the year, and then they sometimes stay up late singing karaoke, though most of the time they are in bed early.

In compensation I noticed they nap frequently in the day time, often in the hottest part of the day when it's unpleasant to work.

It put my own sleep issues in perspective, I realized I had been a little too precious about it and I can indeed do fine on more fractured sleep. Often I form a judgment in the morning about my sleep and if I feel bad about it, I carry that through the day. I'm more convinced now it's a psychosomatic thing, I'm convincing myself I should be tired! So I try not to do that now and think of the people out here who live every day like this.

Re: Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

#19

Post by magicalhippo »

lumost wrote: post #14
rahidz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article: "It's not that modern parents are waking up more often. Work by Samson and others has found that people in hunter-gatherer societies usually wake more frequently through the night than we do." But I think there's a difference between waking up at night because your baby is crying, calming them down, going back to sleep, etc etc. when you have a 9-to-5 job, versus if you're a hunter-gatherer.

The 9-5 is doing a major part of that comment. Irregular sleep isn’t the end of the world if you can sleep in and recover. Modern parents don’t get a chance to recover.

Or take a nap during the day while some of the others watch your kid...

When I work from home and have a bad night, a 20-30 minute power nap during the day does wonders.

Re: Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did

#20

Post by magicalhippo »

cullumsmith wrote: post #15
wiseowise wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on average Not sure where are those lucky ones, but I've met half a dozen parents that became literal zombies during the first years because of a lack of sleep. From what they've reported, 2 hours is a lucky night. It does get better later on, after 2(!) years.

I have five children and find this very difficult to believe. Even the "worst" of it (age 0-3 months) was never anything close to that bad.

My neighbors' first kid had colic and they said the baby slept for at most 20 minutes at a time the first year.

So yea I imagine that'll turn you into a zombie.

They also said after a year they got a tip about a chiropractor (IIRC), went there and after 5 minutes the colic was gone. A real mix of emotions they said...

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