Having kids in house may mean less sleep for young moms

Being a young mother, do you also feel sleep deprived and exhausted most of the times? Relax you are not alone, as a study finds that unlike men, night's sleep for women is affected by having children in the house.

The findings indicated the only factor associated with getting enough sleep was having children in the house, with each child increasing the odds of insufficient sleep by nearly 50 percent.

Younger women with children reported feeling tired 14 days per month on an average as compared to 11 days for younger women without children in the household.

Researchers from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, US, will be presenting the study at the American Academy of Neurology's 69th Annual Meeting in Boston from April 22 to 28.

"I think these findings may bolster those women who say they feel exhausted," said study's lead author Kelly Sullivan.

"Our study found not only are they not sleeping long enough, they also report feeling tired throughout the day," Sullivan added.

The team examined data from a nationwide telephone survey of 5,805 people.

The participants were asked how long they slept, with seven to nine hours per day considered optimum and less than six hours considered insufficient.

They were also asked how many days they felt tired in the past month.

The team also looked at age, race, education, marital status, number of children in the household, income, body mass index, exercise, employment and snoring as possible factors linked to sleep deprivation among the 2,908 women aged 45 years and younger.

For women under 45, 48 percent of women with children reported getting at least seven hours of sleep as compared to 62 percent of women without children.

The study found that not only was living with children associated with how long younger women slept, but also how often they felt tired.