When it comes to waking up when the baby cries, biology ensures that us mamas hear those whimpers before dad does, and therefore are far quicker to wake up during the night to tend to whatever baby needs.
Despite that, we still want them to do their bit, right?
But before you berate the dads in your life for snoozing on, let us reveal the findings of yet another new study – which might hold the clue as to why dad is so deep in sleep he can’t hear those midnight moans. Dads are so tired because they get less sleep than us mums (says new study).
That’s right, guys. I know you might be bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, but you did read this one right: Dads are more sleep-deprived than mums apparently.
In their new book titled The Informed Parent: A Science-Based Resource For Your Child’s First Four Years, science writers and mums Tara Haelle and Emily Willingham have crunched the research to find that while mothers might have more fragmented sleep, fathers are actually more sleep-deprived.
The authors trawled through the latest scientific studies in a variety of areas for the book, including the sleep, or lack of, recorded for both parents.
Fatherly reports the earliest study cited by the pair was in 2004 and involved 72 couples during their first month after baby’s arrival, where dads were found to have had less sleep than mum. It was a similar result in a 2013 study of 21 couples, and a 2012 survey of 241 new dads revealed most got less than six hours of a sleep a night while still working long hours.
Yikes… Does this mean we can’t “gently” remind them it is their turn to get up with the baby again…?
