A third of parents feel they have to lie about their child’s bedtime routine - study

Monday 6th August 2012

A recent study of 10,766 UK families found that new mothers aren't getting enough sleep, due to them being under increasing pressure because their children waking up in the middle of the night. However due to fears that people will think they are a bad parent many are lying about their children's disrupted sleep patterns.

The survey, examining sleeping habits for newborns to children aged ten conducted by Netmums, found that a fifth of those who admitted they lied, said they pretended their children slept through the night. It was also found that out of the third that had lied, 62% covered up how badly they are coping with sleep deprivation. The report showed that a quarter of all UK kids wake up before 6.30am every day which means that their parents never get enough sleep. Whilst 59% of parents are happy with their bedtime routine, one in 10 admits that bedtime can be a “struggle” and 3% believe that they have a “real problem”. Out of the people surveyed half of the families had experienced sleep deprivation, and nearly 31% had been left feeling “exhausted”.

Social pressure and parenting gurus are said to be the blame for the unnecessary pressure that has been put on new mums. Claims that newborns should sleep through the night has made parents lie about their child’s actual sleeping habits, while in reality only 26% of newborns sleep through the night by 12 weeks old.

The study shows less than two thirds of babies make it through the night with unbroken sleep by 12 months old and even though more than three quarters of children sleep through by two years old, 16% of older children still "wake regularly" at night time according to their parents. The most popular method for teaching babies to sleep was enforcing a sleep routine, which 38% of parents said they did. Also 97% of parents said that their most popular bedtime routine was a goodnight kiss and 57% said reading a story book worked for them.

The research marked the start the National Child Sleep Week and aimed to help find out what method works best for each family and show them that all families are different.

Tags: Sleep Deprivation Children National Child

Category: Sleep Research

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