Parenting

Study Says Men Don't Lose Sleep After Having Kids, Moms Everywhere Stare Into The Abyss

by Maria Guido
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
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A new study says women get less sleep after having kids — men don’t

A team of researchers from the American Academy of Neurology have determined that women get less sleep after they have kids. Can you believe it? Of course you can! We’re all fucking exhausted and just begging to get through the day with our sanity intact. What you may not believe, however, is that men don’t.

That’s right, having children in the house was not shown to have an impact on how long men slept. A press release for the study reads, “Unlike men, a good night’s sleep for women is affected by having children in the house.”

Nearly 6,000 people were surveyed for the study. They were asked how long they slept, “with seven to nine hours per day considered optimum and less than six hours considered insufficient.” What range do you think we’re falling into, moms?

“I think these findings may bolster those women who say they feel exhausted,” said study author Kelly Sullivan, PhD, of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga., and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “Our study found not only are they not sleeping long enough, they also report feeling tired throughout the day.”

So, having tiny humans in your home who have reduced your night to five hours of interrupted sleep is not ideal for your sleep schedule? Weird. We knew our husbands were escaping this shit.

You may be saying, What? Who cares! This is just feeding into the stereotype that fathers don’t do as much as mothers! STAAAAHP! They are just as tired. It’s not a competition.

Yes. Yes, it is a competition. If we have to lose all the sleep and do all the shit, the least we should get is some recognition that we are more tired. Give us our fucking trophy. Give us our blue ribbon.

This is motherhood: doing everything, but still not being able to get kudos for what you’re doing. God forbid we complain about losing all the sleep and doing all the things. I mean, we definitely need to keep doing all that stuff, we’re just not allowed to mention that it’s exhausting the shit out of us.

“Among the 2,908 women aged 45 years and younger in the study, researchers found the only factor associated with getting enough sleep was having children in the house, with each child increasing the odds of insufficient sleep by nearly 50 percent. For women under 45, 48 percent of women with children reported getting at least seven hours of sleep, compared to 62 percent of women without children.”

“Getting enough sleep is a key component of overall health and can impact the heart, mind and weight,” said Sullivan, “It’s important to learn what is keeping people from getting the rest they need so we can help them work toward better health.”

Yeah. Maybe recognizing we’re getting less would be a start.

Where’s our ribbon?

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