Why This Working Dad’s Post Is Going Viral, and What Experts Say About 2 a.m. Wake-Ups

Parenting isn’t easy, and whether someone is a full-time working mother or father, the addition of a baby to the family adds an entirely new layer of work. However, mothers are often the ones expected to do the heavy lifting when it comes to parenting. This includes getting up with the baby at night, waking up early, going to bed late, and everything in between, which can be an emotional and physical stressor and cause extreme tiredness throughout the day.

Should Fathers Share the Burden of Night Feeds?

According to a recent Motherly article, social media users argued about whether working fathers should share the burden of waking up in the middle of the night to tend to their newborn children if the mothers are on parental leave. 

Some suggested that both mothers and fathers should help equally, while others believe that working fathers should sleep through the night while mothers on parental leave should care for the child. 

According to the article, a new father, Neil, chimed into the debate by posting a video of him caring for his child in the middle of the night. He later said “I’m still working full-time at my job. She’s [his wife and mother of their child] on parental leave which means I work full-time and she also works full-time.” (1). Neil intended to express his belief that both parents should care equally for the child, and that it is not just his wife’s responsibility. 

Neil added an important element to the debate, suggesting that both he and his wife are taking on the same amount of work, his is just outside the home and hers is inside. He simultaneously drew attention to the unequal distribution of labor and called out the fact that he must wake up at 2 a.m. to care for his child, sparking debate on both gender roles and the health impacts of waking up in the middle of the night. 

Is Waking Up at 2 a.m. Bad for You?  

Your initial thought is probably “yes, duh,” and most sleep experts and doctors would agree with you. A study conducted by Lance M McCracken, PhD and Grant L Iverson, PhD, found that sleep disturbances, including waking up at odd hours, may be associated with “greater pain, depression, physical and psycho-social disability and physical symptoms, and less daily uptime” (2). 

They further discuss that better, more consistent sleep will lead to healthier outcomes, including experiencing less pain or other physical issues (3). Waking up at odd hours to care for a child, therefore, likely does cause issues for your physical health. 

Another study published in the Nature and Science of Sleep explained that “Long-term consequences of sleep disruption…include hypertension, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular disease, weight-related issues, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and colorectal cancer.” (4) Making it apparent that sleep disruptions, like those experienced by parents of young children, could have serious health consequences. 

What Do Nightly Baby Wake-Ups Do to a Parent’s Mental Health? 

Sleep and physical health have an obvious and somewhat intuitive connection: if you do not sleep well you generally do not feel good. However, there are other effects of sleep disruptions that include poorer mental health. 

The data is not conclusive on exactly how sleep disturbances, or waking up at odd hours, affects mental and emotional health. A study in Translational Psychiatry concluded that there is a correlational relationship between sleep disruption and the presence of mood disorders and potentially worsening symptoms (5).

Further, getting less sleep is known to cause more irritable moods, limit patience, and increase poor behavior. When dealing with young children, these are not good qualities to have and could even be dangerous for the child. 

Unequal Distributions of Care Between Mothers and Fathers

Neil brought attention not only to the possible physical issues associated with waking up at odd hours, but also to the fact that commenters on the original video believed that it was a mothers job to wake up with a child, and not a fathers. 

Johns Hopkins Medicine reports that pregnant women often get worse sleep than their non-pregnant counterparts. Further, hormone changes may affect the ability to fall or stay asleep, which can cause the emotional, mental, and physical issues explained above (6). 

The expectations that mothers take primary responsibility over their young children is often rooted in typical gender norms, which many mothers find upsetting. Neil addressed the amount of work moms put in to raise their young children, and commenters agreed, saying they can work a job when tired, but couldn’t raise their kids that way (7). 

So, What Should Parents Do? 

It is clear that waking up at strange hours and disrupting your sleep to take care of a child is not healthy, and according to medical professionals and studies, can have affects on your health long term. 

However, parents have to wake up to take care of their children, despite these negative health effects. In some ways, it might make more sense for just one parent to get up with the child. But then, how do parents decide which one? And, as commenters and Neil addresses, raising children is a joint effort. So the question is asked, what do we do then? 

There is not one obvious answer, but the Mayo Clinic recommends room sharing, to avoid moving too much in the middle of the night, and establishing routines for your baby to sleep consistently. These are efforts that both parents can take part in, and helps to avoid placing unequal amounts of care on one parent or another. It can also help both parents maintain healthier sleep patterns. 

While families should do what works best for them, it is usually important that both parents help when caring for a child. If one gets too tired, annoyed, or flustered, it is important and safer to have another parent step in. It may also help maintain consistent sleep patterns if both parents are able to split up the evening.