computer-science
Why modern parents feel more sleep deprived than our ancestors did
Key takeaways
- When one brave soul posed this to a Reddit parenting forum, more than 400 answers flooded in.
- There are many reasons why parents feel so bone-crushingly tired today – and not all of them have to do with sleep.
- At the same time, many caregivers' sleep certainly changes after having children, whether that's due to an infant's middle-of-the-night feeds or a preschooler's penchant for a 05:00 start.
Amanda Ruggeri Serenity Strull/ BBC/ Getty Images In ancient times, parents probably didn't suffer as much from feeling sleep deprived, leading some scientists to reconsider guidelines for today's new parents to get some shut-eye.
How exhausting is it to be a parent? When one brave soul posed this to a Reddit parenting forum, more than 400 answers flooded in. "Extremely. It's extremely exhausting and it is literally CONSTANT," wrote one respondent, the sentiment echoed by hundreds of others.
There are many reasons why parents feel so bone-crushingly tired today – and not all of them have to do with sleep. For instance, many families raise their children without community support, while parents often have to juggle work with child-rearing.
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