Sleep Doctor Michael Breus, PhD | The Insomnia Blog

Kicking the Kids Out of the Bedroom for Sex

When Dr. Laura Berman, a noted authority on sex health, offered her “5 ways to keep kids from ruining your sex life,” she hit some fine points that are difficult for many to swallow. You can read them here; she puts it bluntly and calls our world “child-centric.”

As a father myself, I know first hand that having children makes life more complicated and busy. They can become the center of everything (I applaud the moms who give up work outside the home to care for and raise their kids full-time.). But regardless of whether a home has two working parents or just one, I bet sex get shoved aside more often than not. Amid the chaos of trying to achieve that mythical balance between work and home, you forget about the pleasures—and necessity—of sex. In brief, here’s what I think about Berman’s ideas:

Study Proves it: Parents Are Sleep-Deprived

So here is a study out of Brown Medical School that again seems obvious to me; but at least we now have some science to back it up.

When kids don’t sleep, neither to their parents -- specifically their mothers.

Julie Boergers, PhD, studied 107 families seeking treatment for their children aged 2 to 12 at a pediatric sleep disorders clinic, and found a link between children’s and parents’ sleep problems.

For both parents, having a child with more than one sleep disorder was associated with greater parental daytime sleepiness.  Also, mothers of children with sleep disorders had significantly greater daytime sleepiness than fathers, even though they reported about the same number of hours of sleep per night.

Why, you ask, could this be true? Well, for one, mothers may be the ones who get up in the middle of the night with the little ones, at least moreso on average.

According to a poll by by the National Sleep Foundation, 53% of parents say they are awakened by their child at least once a week.

I say HAH, I wish I was only up once per week by my kids -- that would actually be heaven!  My 5 year old, no problem, but my 3.5 year old is now finally getting to the point of sleeping significantly better. 

Sleep and Pregnancy: New "Good Night" Review

The mom blog Cheese Party just reviewed my book, Good Night, from the perspective of a mom-to-be who's not sleeping so well, and due in 20 weeks.  If you're in the same boat, you may want to drop by and read some of her review.

Here's an excerpt:

Long time readers may recall that I've mentioned my sleep troubles before. They might also remember my adventures with ear plugs. I've been a troubled sleeper since adolescence, and the situation has only been compounded by snoring sleep partner, a baby and a pregnancy. For a period during college, I spent some time in behavior modification therapy with the main intention of improving my sleep. While it helped, it wasn't as comprehensive as I would have liked. Now a few years later, Dr.Breus' book has provided me with all the information my therapist left out, and I've noticed a big difference in my sleep quality.

If you read the whole review, Amy Jo goes on to name one of the mental tricks I recommend in the book (it worked for her).  Since she has trouble falling asleep, she may also be a candidate for the meditation audio track I'm giving away for free to all subscribers of my Beauty Sleep Newsletter. 

Pain in the Neck Due to Fragmented Sleep

A recent study at John’s Hopkin’s University, published in the Journal Sleep, discovered what many of us have known for years:  lack of sleep hurts, lliterally.

What researchers called "fragmented sleep" (waking their patients up every hour for 7-8 hours) caused lower pain tolerance and more spontaneous pain in normal healthy women than keeping them awake for 36 hours straight.

This is a great case of science finally listening to MOMS, who say that waking up all night with their kids
“just hurts!”

What does this mean in the long term?  It's hard to say -- but these researchers are asking if poor sleep can be an early signal of chronic pain.