That babies and small children for sleepless nights of worry, is probably familiar to every parent. How much sleep is compromised, researchers at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom are analyzed with data from Germany. Therefore, it will take after the birth of the first child up to six years, until mother and father can sleep again like before.

Harder it is usually the mothers, explains Sakari Lemola from the Psychological Institute of the University of. “Women suffer after the birth of a child is usually more likely to have sleep disorders than men.” This is due to the fact that mothers are still more likely than fathers are the primary caregivers. In the first six months of the impact on breastfeeding mothers were also bigger. First parents had it harder than experienced parents with more children, Lemola.

Parents ‘ sleep is shorter, even if the children are of preschool age

According to him, mothers sleep on average in the first three months, within which a deep-point is reached, one hour less than before the birth. In the case of the fathers, there are 15 minutes less. Although the better-with the increasing age of the offspring. However, even if the children are already four to six years old, sleeping women according to the study, 20 minutes and fathers for 15 minutes less per night than it was before the birth.

For the investigation of the long-term effects of pregnancy and birth on sleep satisfaction and duration of the responses of 2541 mothers and 2118 fathers of the so-called socio-economic panel study (SOEP) were evaluated from the years 2008 to 2015. This is a representative repeat survey on behalf of the German Institute for economic research (DIW Berlin).