The average newborn sleeps for three to four hours at a time, according to the National Sleep Foundation, but you probably already knew about the whole babies just don’t sleep thing. Now new stats from an Indeed.com survey show that new working mamas spend an average of 105 days on the job before their littles sleep through the night.
What does this mean for U.S. working moms? For most of us, showing up to work after a totally sleepless night is pretty much the norm, but it also makes returning to a job mere weeks after birth just that much more challenging.
photo: Engin_Akyurt via Pixabay
Indeed.com’s survey isn’t exactly the first set of statistics that points out the impact newborns have on their parents’ sleep. Another survey from Owlet Baby Care found that parents of infants under six-months get a depressingly low amount of nightly shuteye. Almost half of the parents surveyed got between one and three hours of uninterrupted (not total) hours of sleep nightly.
While you can’t change how or when your baby sleeps, your employer may have a solution. In a perfect world, the United States would jump on-board with the extended paid parental leave policies many other countries offer or at the very least, companies would offer flexible start times.
Luckily it looks like employers are taking notice when it comes to tired new parents. Almost two-third of working moms surveyed by Indeed.com said their employers did offer some form of scheduling flexibility in their baby’s first year!
—Erica Loop
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