Here's a cheery statistic; new parents can lose about two month's worth of sleep in the first year of their baby's life! Yay-ola!
This stat comes from a corporate press release masquerading as a proper news story on the BBC, a survey of 500 mums and dads* by the toy company Tomy (see http://www.tomy.co.uk/sleep/ for a free PDF, no info harvesting at least).
Apparently a third of parents lose 90 minutes of sleep a night, equivalent to a full night's sleep a week. Half of new parents argue over who has the least sleep. We don't. It's K___. I sleep like a log most of the time. K___ sleeps with two earplugs in listening to me snoring and the baby chirping like she's a Mogwai. The article goes on to say that mothers say they typically respond to a baby's cries within 30 seconds, whereas partners take 5 minutes or so, and mothers also say that 43% of men sleep through altogether. Only 1% of mothers claim to be able to do the same. 20% of parents say they are woken four or more times a night during the first month.
A quarter of parents claim these experiences have put their relationships under strain, which is a fairly sobering statistic. Even worse, 20% of parents think their friends lie about how much sleep they're getting.
I think there's a number of interesting points here. Firstly, men tend to be heavier sleepers than women. They just do, and it's about as deliberate as them having a penis. Or work it the other way round, if you prefer. You filthy light-sleeping hussys. Either way, like blaming one sex for having a particular set of genitals, it's a pretty pointless business trying to turn it into a blame issue. Secondly, the majority of two parent families will have the man going back to work whilst the mother stays at home with the child, at least for a time, and for many that may mean that the mother ends up taking a greater share of the nightime care duties ("sexist!").
The biggest thing I take from this, is how bloody lucky we seem to be. At risk of boasting, or having 20% of our readers think we're lying, Olivia generally sleeps from about 8 pm to 6 am with no interruptions (which according to the pdf is somewhat rare and unusual. Must check if baby is narcoleptic...). And has done for about three weeks. This doesn't mean we get uninterrupted sleep. Or rather, it doesn't mean K___ gets uninterrupted sleep. To be honest - and I'm not saying it's fair - I generally do. K___ wakes for every little noise, worried in case Olivia has got wet or been feed after midnight, and is about to turn into a Gremlin. Overall, however, we're pretty lucky, it seems.
Sleep's so last year though, isn't it?
* Rather confusingly, the BBC story that announced this, and the blurb here both say 500 mums and dads, but the pdf says 5,000 mums. 500 seems more likely, since for a population of 650,000 (based on UK live births 2005 (Nat Stats)), you only need 384 respondents to have the most commonly used confidence of 95% +/- 5% (which means that to ensure that you can be 95% sure that if you asked the entire population of mums (650,000-ish, not accounting for multiple births) a question, the response would be within 5% of the response levels you got from asking your 385 respondents); any more would be overkill.
This stat comes from a corporate press release masquerading as a proper news story on the BBC, a survey of 500 mums and dads* by the toy company Tomy (see http://www.tomy.co.uk/sleep/ for a free PDF, no info harvesting at least).
Apparently a third of parents lose 90 minutes of sleep a night, equivalent to a full night's sleep a week. Half of new parents argue over who has the least sleep. We don't. It's K___. I sleep like a log most of the time. K___ sleeps with two earplugs in listening to me snoring and the baby chirping like she's a Mogwai. The article goes on to say that mothers say they typically respond to a baby's cries within 30 seconds, whereas partners take 5 minutes or so, and mothers also say that 43% of men sleep through altogether. Only 1% of mothers claim to be able to do the same. 20% of parents say they are woken four or more times a night during the first month.
A quarter of parents claim these experiences have put their relationships under strain, which is a fairly sobering statistic. Even worse, 20% of parents think their friends lie about how much sleep they're getting.
I think there's a number of interesting points here. Firstly, men tend to be heavier sleepers than women. They just do, and it's about as deliberate as them having a penis. Or work it the other way round, if you prefer. You filthy light-sleeping hussys. Either way, like blaming one sex for having a particular set of genitals, it's a pretty pointless business trying to turn it into a blame issue. Secondly, the majority of two parent families will have the man going back to work whilst the mother stays at home with the child, at least for a time, and for many that may mean that the mother ends up taking a greater share of the nightime care duties ("sexist!").
The biggest thing I take from this, is how bloody lucky we seem to be. At risk of boasting, or having 20% of our readers think we're lying, Olivia generally sleeps from about 8 pm to 6 am with no interruptions (which according to the pdf is somewhat rare and unusual. Must check if baby is narcoleptic...). And has done for about three weeks. This doesn't mean we get uninterrupted sleep. Or rather, it doesn't mean K___ gets uninterrupted sleep. To be honest - and I'm not saying it's fair - I generally do. K___ wakes for every little noise, worried in case Olivia has got wet or been feed after midnight, and is about to turn into a Gremlin. Overall, however, we're pretty lucky, it seems.
Sleep's so last year though, isn't it?
* Rather confusingly, the BBC story that announced this, and the blurb here both say 500 mums and dads, but the pdf says 5,000 mums. 500 seems more likely, since for a population of 650,000 (based on UK live births 2005 (Nat Stats)), you only need 384 respondents to have the most commonly used confidence of 95% +/- 5% (which means that to ensure that you can be 95% sure that if you asked the entire population of mums (650,000-ish, not accounting for multiple births) a question, the response would be within 5% of the response levels you got from asking your 385 respondents); any more would be overkill.
I am a geek.
Of the mothers I know, they all say their babies slept through the night from a v early age! So either it's not that rare or there is fibbing of the 'my child is so perfect' variety going on!
ReplyDeleteThat said, my Mum says my brother was generally a crying ratbag when he was a baby...
Just when he was a baby...? :)
ReplyDeleteI can't believe Phil is still breastfed, or in nappies. He's in his thirties for fuck's sake.
ReplyDelete