Over half of working moms have missed work due to lack of sleep

Working mothers are sleep-deprived. While parenting and sleep deprivation go hand in hand, at work, moms are expected to be on their A-game. However, a new report is shedding light on how too little sleep is impacting how moms are able to show up at work, or even, if they’re able to show up at all. 

According to the new Bedtime Report from Better Sleep, a relaxation and sleep app with over 65 million users worldwide, moms are struggling to get enough rest. The research, which was conducted by Wakefield Research and involved 1,000 U.S. mothers, found that over the past year more than half of working moms (53%) have either called in sick, left work early, or underperformed at their job, due to lack of sleep. And it’s not just a one-off incident for most of them: 36% said it’s happened repeatedly.

The sleep stats are eye-opening (pun intended): 35% of moms said they clock around six to seven hours of sleep a night and 26% get between five and six. Worse off are the 14% who said they are only getting four or five, and the very weary 2% who get less than four. Alarmingly, only around 23% of moms get a solid seven hours of shuteye on the average weeknight.

So, why aren’t moms getting enough sleep? According to the research, it’s not because they all have colicky babies or are up late binge-watching The Bear and eating Pop Chips all night. It’s because they’re stressed and can’t quiet their minds enough to get a decent night’s sleep.

Seven in ten moms cited anxiety, racing thoughts, or thinking about their daily responsibilities as a top reason for their exhaustion. Worryingly, even more (73%) say they don’t feel that their lack of sleep is seen which, in turn, means there’s no real support to help them actually relax, rest, and reset.

Nathalie Walton, General Manager of BetterSleep says the issue is all too common but that the implications are huge. “Moms are operating in a state of sustained depletion that affects every part of their lives,” she said in a press release. “This data makes visible what millions of mothers already know, but rarely say out loud. Rest is not a luxury. It’s what makes everything else possible—and right now, far too many moms are running on empty.”

All the sleep stats are troubling because going through the day delirious with exhaustion is tough. It makes 48% of moms feel less connected to their kids, 46% short-tempered, and 34% say they are more willing to rely on screens to occupy their kids. But when it comes to how moms are managing at work, lack of sleep is majorly problematic there, too. Nearly a fifth (19%) say they’ve retreated from their career goals or promotions that were once within their reach due to their pure and utter exhaustion. 

The research doesn’t mean that moms are failing. It means they are having to manage too much. “What we’re seeing is not a personal failing, it’s a structural one,” Dr. Shelby Harris, clinical sleep psychologist and sleep expert at BetterSleep said in a press release. “Mothers have been conditioned to treat rest as something they have to earn, not something they deserve. Changing that starts with understanding the full scale of the problem.”

From that lens, the report should shed light on the fact that moms—who are often holding down the fort at home and working outside of the home, too—urgently need more support, both inside their home (Hello, partners? Are you there?) and outside it (affordable childcare anyone?). That seems especially true for Gen Z moms who experienced the highest rate of work disruptions due to lack of sleep: 65% of Gen Z moms fell off at work due to exhaustion compared to 55% of millennials and 39% of Gen X moms.

It might be easy to blame the baby, but according to the research, it’s the tireless mental load that’s the real culprit.

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