Music to the tired ears of parents across the country.
Everyone knows that babies are a surefire way to destroy your sleep pattern... however a new study has shown the damage they cause to our sleeping routine may last years.
Six years to be precise, according to a study conducted by the UK’s University of Warwick.
Researchers looked at the sleep of almost 4700 parents who had children between 2008 and 2015, and they found the birth of a child has major short-term effects on sleep, especially for women.
“Sleep satisfaction and duration sharply declined with childbirth and reached a nadir (lowest point) during the first three months (after childbirth), with women more strongly affected,” they noted.
During that first three months, mothers slept an average of one hour less than before pregnancy, compared to 15 minutes less for fathers.
“Women tend to experience more sleep disruption than men after the birth of a child reflecting that mothers are still more often in the role of the primary caregiver than fathers” wrote Dr Sakari Lemola, from the university’s psychology department.
However, the study also showed that, even when the children were aged between four and six, sleep duration was still 20 minutes shorter in mothers and 15 minutes shorter in fathers, compared to their sleep duration before pregnancy.
It was also found that first year parents were more effected than their experienced counterparts. In the first half a year after birth, the sleep effects were also somewhat stronger in breastfeeding compared with bottle-feeding mothers.
Higher household income and “psychosocial factors”, such as dual or single parenting, did not appear to protect against these changes in sleep after childbirth.
“While having children is a major source of joy for most parents, it is possible that increased demands and responsibilities associated with the role as a parent lead to shorter sleep and decreased sleep quality even up to six years after birth of the first child,” Dr Lemola wrote.
