When will I start getting more sleep?

When you become a parent your sleep pattern will change for many years to come. Your sleep will be frequently interrupted and as a new parent you may sleep as little as three hours a night, less than half of the recommended minimum sleep of seven hours per night. The quality and quantity of your sleep will be diminished for years from the moment you have a baby.

There are a couple of studies about the long-term impact of having small children on sleep quality and duration. According to research from Warwick University mothers sleep on average about one hour less per night during the first three month after childbirth. While the sleep loss is declining as the child grows up mothers report that six years after childbirth they still sleep about 20 minutes less every night.

Men seem to be less affected than women reporting an average decrease of their sleep duration of about 15 minutes. Part of the gender difference may stem from the fact that mothers are the primary caregiver in most households. Interestingly, household income or being a single mother or parent does not seem to have an impact on parents’ sleep. However, if parents have more than one child they tend to return to normalised sleep patterns faster after the birth of the next child.

The best thing you can do as young parent is to recognise and accept that up to six years after childbirth your sleep quality and duration will suffer. You will be woken several times at night to feed or comfort your child. Even when your child is older there can be nights when you find it difficult to get sufficient sleep because you worry about your child’s development and future. While your sleep may be shorter and interrupted there are a couple of things you can do to improve your sleep quality.

Make sure your sleep environment is comfortable and relaxing. Use sleep meditations to go back to sleep when woken up. Catch up on sleep when you can and as a young mother at home sleep when your baby sleeps. While you may not be able to get the recommended seven hours of minimum sleep per night you can improve your overall sleeping duration through segmented and catch-up sleep.

So, what should parents expect to happen to their sleep after having children and does it ever get back to normal?  As the research suggests, mothers will have disrupted and significantly shorter sleep for the first three months after childbirth. While parental sleep improves afterwards all parents report shortened sleep duration of about 15 to 20 minutes per night even six years after child birth.

The good news is on average that most parents return to normalised sleep duration of about 7 hours per night about six years after child birth. For some parents their sleep never returns to pre-child level even as the children become teenagers as they worry at night about the development and future of their children. However, on average you can expect to get back to normalised sleeping patterns six years after childbirth. So be patient and adopt coping mechanisms to live on limited sleep for a couple of years after having your baby knowing that you are likely to return to normalised sleep quality and duration.

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