This New Mom Wonders How Working Parents Spend Quality Time With Their Young Kids Sleeping 7 PM To 7 AM
Seasoned parents had some very thoughtful answers for the worried mom.
There is no doubt that being a working parent, especially in 2025, is no easy feat. Our minds are in about 100 different places at all times, focusing on meetings and spreadsheets while signing up for soccer and filling out parent volunteer forms. So, if we’re just doing the logistical things that come with being a working parent, where do we fit in quality time with our kids?
One new mom is wondering this exact thing after noticing that, now that she’s back at work, she’s not really seeing her kid.
She asked for some advice in the /Parenting Reddit thread and wrote, “Currently have an almost 11 week old girl. While it’s not quite time to start any sort of sleep scheduling / training, what I don’t understand is why the universal recommendation is to get the children sleeping from 7pm to 7am.”
“I understand that it is important for them to get that much sleep, but the specific hours don’t quite make sense, especially for working parents,” she continued.
She then explained her daily schedule.
“For example, I’m the working parent, and I leave the house at 7:30 AM, come home for an hour long lunch break, and then get home at 5:15 pm, every day. If we were to follow the 7 - 7 schedule, that would only give me 30 minutes in the morning, the hour during lunch, and then an hour and 45 minutes, totalling only 3 hours and 15 minutes a day to spend with my little girl.”
“When I was a kid, my bedtime was set at 9pm every night, which makes more sense to me and let me spend time with my dad who worked. Having my baby’s schedule set from 9 pm to 9 am would give me 5 hours total to spend with my little girl. However, I never see this as a recommended schedule.”
Now she’s wondering if she should switch up her daughter’s bedtime, going against the “recommended” schedule.
“When the time comes, is there anything wrong with going a different route than the typical ‘7-7’ sleep window? Call me selfish, but I want to actually be able to spend time with my little girl during the day instead of a short interaction before she goes off to bed,” she concluded.
Some of the comments left on the new mom’s Reddit post were steeped in humor.
“My son made sure he was able to spend quality time with me every night by refusing to sleep all the way through for way too long. We spent mucho time together at 2am,” one user joked.
Another echoed, “My oldest son always woke up at 5am (no matter what time he went to bed). Thankfully by the time he was 4yo, he was able to somewhat figure out the TV remote and could watch cartoons while I slept. That’s right. If you’re ever fretting about your baby waking up too early, just be thankful you didn’t have my son (who didn’t start sleeping in until he was a teenager). Bright side is that he usually wakes himself for school.”
Others told the OP to go with her gut and do what’s right for her family.
One wrote, “You make what works for your family happen. No family works the same and schedules are what works for your family.”
“Figure out what works for your family and your particular child. And that will change as she hits developmental milestones. The only thing constant about sleep patterns with little ones is they’re constantly changing and getting interrupted (teething, development, illness, different household schedules, daycare/school changes, etc.),” another user said.
Others noted that they just don’t see their kids that much.
“We do follow 7-7 so my kid sees me like one hour a day, on workdays. But I work 4 days so I’ll be sure to spend some time the other days,” one user wrote.
Another said, “Growing up I saw my parents at dinner and on weekends. I think that’s true of many families.”
Read the entire Reddit thread here.
