Half Changed World

Almost every parent I know thinks that diaper changing is vastly overrated as the worst part of parenting — it’s the lack of sleep, and the interrupted sleep, that kills you. Shortly after my older son was born I took a grim satisfaction in reading a newspaper article about how a number of accused suspects had falsely confessed to major crimes under the pressure of being kept awake for long periods of time.

A British magazine, Mother and Baby, recently released survey results that have gotten a lot of play on the internet. The statistic that’s gotten the most attention is the claim that 52 percent of fathers either sleep through their babies cries or pretend to, while mothers only get an average of 4 1/2 hours of sleep a day during the first 4 months of their children’s lives. That 4 1/2 hour figure is pretty horrifying; fortunately, it’s almost certainly bunk. I couldn’t find on their web site any explanation of how the survey was conducted, which almost always means that they had the survey in the magazine and readers sent it back. Well, that means you have a highly selected sample — those parents who are worked up enough about sleep to bother sending back a stupid survey to a magazine.

However, the Sleep Foundation has also recently released its survey results, based on a more scientific sample. This is a long, fairly technical report, but it has some interesting findings:

* 71 percent of all infants (under 12 months) wake up at least once per night, and 21 percent wake up three or more times per night. Both the number of wakenings and the length of time that they’re up decreases as kids get older, but 36 percent of preschoolers are still waking up at least once per night.

* This survey agrees that mothers are by far more likely to respond to a child who needs attention in the night, being the primary respondents for 89% of infants, 85% of toddlers, and 71% of preschoolers.

* They found that the average primary caregiver for a child under 2 months slept 6.2 hours a night, and for all children under 10, 6.8 hours a night. Granted, 6.2 hours broken into 3 2-hour chunks is an order of magnitude less restful than a solid 6 hours, but it’s better than 4 1/2. Most parents think they need about 8 hours a night.

*Almost 3 in 10 parents reported having some symptoms of insomnia at least a few nights a week, with nearly half saying they have these symptoms more often since becoming a parent, and about 20 percent saying less often. This hit home, because I’ve been having trouble sleeping this week. I fall asleep instantly, but when I get woken in the early morning — typically by the boys, but Tuesday it was by the cat puking next to our bed — I can’t get back to sleep. It’s the worst feeling, lying there exhausted, unable to get back to sleep, knowing that my alarm is going to go off in just an hour or so.

* 10 percent of parents of an infant say their child’s sleep habits have caused a moderate or significant amount of stress in their relationship with their spouse/partner — much better than the 60 percent who Mother and Baby claims say that it has created “immense stress.”

* There are some interesting statistics comparing infants/toddlers who are put to bed awake versus those put to bed asleep (eg rocked or carried until they fall asleep), suggesting that those who are put to bed awake sleep better. However, I could make the argument that the causation goes in either direction. I’m an agnostic in the sleep wars (cosleeping v. sleep hygiene v. crying it out, etc), believing in doing what works for you. My older son didn’t sleep through the night until he was about 14 months, my younger slept through the night at 4 months; we didn’t do anything differently.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 23rd, 2004 at 9:14 pm and is filed under Statistics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.