4 ms·

Usually parents can't sleep well only for a year at most, even 6 months old children are sleeping whole nights.

growt 6y ago
That's just half of the picture. My kids are older but they have a talent to get up at 6 in the morning on weekends. And need to get up at similar times for school during the week.
- stagger87 6y ago
  If you have kids getting up at 6 for school and you haven't adjusted your sleep schedule to match, isn't that kind of on you now?
  - SethMurphy 6y ago
    As a parent I need both my own down time and time alone with my spouse to feel mentally healthy too, and that is usually after they are in bed and asleep. Maybe more than 6 hours is easy, but it's usually less than 8 if I manage to do all my normal expected activities. Often I do sleep instead now though as I quickly realized my temperament is only agreeable with enough of it as I age, and the other things I need to do suffer. Others may not make the same choice, and it's not a wrong to prioritize other important aspects of mental and physical well being.
  - wonderwonder 6y ago
    How does one do this? Parents get up at 6 to get their kids ready for school. Then take the kids to school, shower, have breakfast and then work until 6. Picking up the kids at some point in there. Then make dinner, family time and then kids go to bed at 8 or 9. Now you have the option of going right to sleep which is fine if you desire no personal time / partner time. But if you have your own hobbies or goals then you spend a couple hours on those and bang you are sleep deprived.
    - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      It's all about priorities, time management, efficiency, and sharing the load. If you want to have both parents working, stay late at the office, have both parents involved with kids for every activity, and also work on side projects late at night, you're going to struggle until the kids are more self sufficient. Even without kids, waking up at 6AM, hustling through morning routines and to the office, working to 6PM and then getting home at 6:30PM (assuming commute) leaves about 3.5 hours of free time and 8 hours for sleep. If you're trying to shoe-horn involved hobbies and side projects into those weekdays, something has to give regardless of whether or not you have kids. The standard parent learning curve usually involves: Becoming more efficient with your routines, becoming more efficient with time management at the office, learning to say no to unnecessary requests, pushing back on jobs that demand long hours (or changing jobs to a more reasonable 8-hour workday company), becoming more efficient with meals and grocery shopping, doing more tradeoff load sharing with partner instead of both people being involved in everything, and letting kids have more independent play time as they age. That said, you simply won't have as much alone time with kids in the equation. If you're trying to do too much, you have to sacrifice somewhere. It's better to do a few things well than to try to do everything at 75% commitment or being 75% awake.
  - growt 6y ago
    I have and it is. I'm not sleep deprived (much). I just wanted to say that having kids influences your sleep far longer than six months and probably not for the better.
gumby 6y ago
Then in their teens they may sleep 10 hours a day but that's the only time you're not worried.
hpoe 6y ago
You say that. I too believed as you did. I looked for the joyous day when I could sleep through the night with our first and second and third. But it turns out toddlers will get up in the night and ask you to tuck them back in, they will get up because they had a scary dream, because they can't find their stuffed animal, and don't get me started on night terrors. The point is I don't think this tracks. I don't think I've had a solid week of uninterrupted sleep since our first came home.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Night terrors are not remotely normal. They are a fairly uncommon and extreme sleep issue. My experience/understanding: Very bright kids get night terrors when you make sure they are physically tired enough to sleep but fail to make sure they are mentally tired enough to sleep. You need both to sleep deeply and bright kids who can't yet read have trouble reaching a state of being adequately mentally tired. I suggest you join some parenting lists for people suffering from having made the mistake if giving birth to bright kids. Tagfam.org is probably still a good place to begin trying to find support resources and reliable info. Edit: Bright kids are known to be prone to a variety of sleep issues. I spent twelve years arranging every minute of every day to make sleep feasible for one of my kids.
IggleSniggle 6y ago
Ha! This is not my lived experience at all nor of my friend-group. My older kid, 5, mostly sleeps fine now, but both he and his sibling had middle-of-night issues well into their 2s. Even now, if one of my kids wakes (sometimes many hours before I would choose to wake, sometimes due to things like bed wetting), I’m not going to be finishing my nights sleep, and even if I did, the quality is simply lower. Pre-6 months, we’re talking about a zombie lifestyle where there is no “sleeping at night,” just sleeping between feedings. I acknowledge there are definitely both cultural and hereditary elements to this, but your comment is so starkly different from my experience and the experience of my friends.
ihaveajob 6y ago
My coffee addiction says otherwise :). YMMV but kids have their hangups and it's often not possible to negotiate rationally. They also regress (this past year has been terrible, with no school for extended periods, staying at grandma's every couple of weeks so parents can get work done...), and you're back to square one. Ours are 2 and 5, and I haven't slept in on a Saturday morning since 2015.
irrational 6y ago
That's not my experience at all. My oldest woke up screaming with nightmares every night until she was 7 years old. That was 7 solid years of my not sleeping through the night.

That's just half of the picture. My kids are older but they have a talent to get up at 6 in the morning on weekends. And need to get up at similar times for school during the week.

stagger87 6y ago
If you have kids getting up at 6 for school and you haven't adjusted your sleep schedule to match, isn't that kind of on you now?
- SethMurphy 6y ago
  As a parent I need both my own down time and time alone with my spouse to feel mentally healthy too, and that is usually after they are in bed and asleep. Maybe more than 6 hours is easy, but it's usually less than 8 if I manage to do all my normal expected activities. Often I do sleep instead now though as I quickly realized my temperament is only agreeable with enough of it as I age, and the other things I need to do suffer. Others may not make the same choice, and it's not a wrong to prioritize other important aspects of mental and physical well being.
- wonderwonder 6y ago
  How does one do this? Parents get up at 6 to get their kids ready for school. Then take the kids to school, shower, have breakfast and then work until 6. Picking up the kids at some point in there. Then make dinner, family time and then kids go to bed at 8 or 9. Now you have the option of going right to sleep which is fine if you desire no personal time / partner time. But if you have your own hobbies or goals then you spend a couple hours on those and bang you are sleep deprived.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    It's all about priorities, time management, efficiency, and sharing the load. If you want to have both parents working, stay late at the office, have both parents involved with kids for every activity, and also work on side projects late at night, you're going to struggle until the kids are more self sufficient. Even without kids, waking up at 6AM, hustling through morning routines and to the office, working to 6PM and then getting home at 6:30PM (assuming commute) leaves about 3.5 hours of free time and 8 hours for sleep. If you're trying to shoe-horn involved hobbies and side projects into those weekdays, something has to give regardless of whether or not you have kids. The standard parent learning curve usually involves: Becoming more efficient with your routines, becoming more efficient with time management at the office, learning to say no to unnecessary requests, pushing back on jobs that demand long hours (or changing jobs to a more reasonable 8-hour workday company), becoming more efficient with meals and grocery shopping, doing more tradeoff load sharing with partner instead of both people being involved in everything, and letting kids have more independent play time as they age. That said, you simply won't have as much alone time with kids in the equation. If you're trying to do too much, you have to sacrifice somewhere. It's better to do a few things well than to try to do everything at 75% commitment or being 75% awake.
- growt 6y ago
  I have and it is. I'm not sleep deprived (much). I just wanted to say that having kids influences your sleep far longer than six months and probably not for the better.

gumby 6y ago

Then in their teens they may sleep 10 hours a day but that's the only time you're not worried.

hpoe 6y ago

You say that. I too believed as you did. I looked for the joyous day when I could sleep through the night with our first and second and third. But it turns out toddlers will get up in the night and ask you to tuck them back in, they will get up because they had a scary dream, because they can't find their stuffed animal, and don't get me started on night terrors. The point is I don't think this tracks. I don't think I've had a solid week of uninterrupted sleep since our first came home.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
Night terrors are not remotely normal. They are a fairly uncommon and extreme sleep issue. My experience/understanding: Very bright kids get night terrors when you make sure they are physically tired enough to sleep but fail to make sure they are mentally tired enough to sleep. You need both to sleep deeply and bright kids who can't yet read have trouble reaching a state of being adequately mentally tired. I suggest you join some parenting lists for people suffering from having made the mistake if giving birth to bright kids. Tagfam.org is probably still a good place to begin trying to find support resources and reliable info. Edit: Bright kids are known to be prone to a variety of sleep issues. I spent twelve years arranging every minute of every day to make sleep feasible for one of my kids.

IggleSniggle 6y ago

Ha! This is not my lived experience at all nor of my friend-group. My older kid, 5, mostly sleeps fine now, but both he and his sibling had middle-of-night issues well into their 2s. Even now, if one of my kids wakes (sometimes many hours before I would choose to wake, sometimes due to things like bed wetting), I’m not going to be finishing my nights sleep, and even if I did, the quality is simply lower. Pre-6 months, we’re talking about a zombie lifestyle where there is no “sleeping at night,” just sleeping between feedings. I acknowledge there are definitely both cultural and hereditary elements to this, but your comment is so starkly different from my experience and the experience of my friends.

ihaveajob 6y ago

My coffee addiction says otherwise :). YMMV but kids have their hangups and it's often not possible to negotiate rationally. They also regress (this past year has been terrible, with no school for extended periods, staying at grandma's every couple of weeks so parents can get work done...), and you're back to square one. Ours are 2 and 5, and I haven't slept in on a Saturday morning since 2015.

irrational 6y ago

That's not my experience at all. My oldest woke up screaming with nightmares every night until she was 7 years old. That was 7 solid years of my not sleeping through the night.