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Conference Paper - Final Draft - Hannah Oh
Conference Paper - Final Draft - Hannah Oh
Conference Paper - Final Draft - Hannah Oh
Professor Althoff
WRTG 150
15 November 2019
Introduction
In Disney’s The Lion King, a young cub named Simba wakes early one morning to
excitedly pounce on his father, Mufasa, to wake him up. His mother, Sarabi, mumbles sleepily to
her mate, “Your son is awake.” In response, Mufasa quips, “Before sunrise, he’s your son.” (The
This light-hearted scene is funny because it’s relatable. Most mothers watching The Lion
King smile and role their eyes, and maybe turn to their husband with a quick, “Ain’t that the
truth?” Yet, most viewers fail to question Mufasa’s assumption that all nightly duties should fall
on Sarabi. Those roles are so securely ingrained into our culture that we don’t even question their
validity.
Today, let us begin questioning: Why are mothers expected to wake up several times a
night to care for children while their partners are allowed to roll over in ignorant bliss?
All too often, the fathers in our society believe that only the mothers have the ability or
the responsibility to care for children during nighttime wakings. For this reason, mothers,
particularly those with infants, are disproportionately prone to fragmented sleep patterns.
There have been many arguments aiming to explain why new mothers are more
vulnerable to sleep fragmentation than fathers, ranging from natural maternal resources to time
availability, but the data points to society as the most probable cause (Burgard). Society has
placed unreasonable expectations on mothers that require those mothers to sacrifice their own
health in order to provide 24/7 on-call care to their newborns with very little, if any, help from
their partners.
These gendered expectations have far-reaching effects. Fragmented sleep patterns have
been shown to have adverse psychological, physiological, and social effects. Society is
Many in our society would argue that it is a natural experience for new mothers and that
women who have chosen to be mothers have also chosen to lose sleep over it. What these people
are ignoring is that new fathers made the same decision when they helped to conceive a child,
and that they bear equal responsibility in caring for that child.
fragmented sleep patterns, adversely affecting their overall health and well-being, but we can
Background
Sleep fragmentation refers to repeated, short sleep interruptions during a sleeping period
(Bertha).
In a study about the sleep quality of postpartum women, participants reported waking up
an average of three times per night for forty-five minutes each time (Lewis). It should be noted
that sleep wakings vary in frequency and duration with every child. For example, I know women
whose children, only weeks after delivery, only wake once every night to feed. Meanwhile, my
first child woke up an average of six times until she was two and my youngest, at just shy of one
year, wakes a decent average of three or four times per night. My oldest nursed for forty minutes
While there is a plethora of studies on sleep quality, insomnia, and general sleep
deprivation, studies on sleep fragmentation are limited, and those which focus on postpartum
women are more so. Many studies that include sleep fragmentation in relation to postpartum
women group it with other sleep quality issues rather than isolating it as a risk factor. This is
problematic in that it limits our understanding of the specific effects of fragmentation on new
significantly, there is a more significant amount of sociological research to support the idea that
postpartum women are more likely to experience fragmented sleeping patterns than their
partners. Research shows that American mothers, regardless of other social roles, are more likely
to take the night shift of childcare than fathers or other partners (Burgard). This is supported by
another study in which fifty mothers were asked, in addition to other sleep quality questions,
who was responsible for nighttime caregiving. Forty-five of the fifty mothers reported that they
were the sole nighttime caregivers. Only one mother reported that the father took the nighttime
The question remains, then, of why women are so much more likely to sacrifice sleep,
when it would seem that mothers and fathers should be equally responsible for their child.
sleep patterns than new fathers. Four of these hypotheses were tested against each other in a
study which used data from the American Time Use Surveys conducted between 2003 and 2007.
The Time Availability theory suggests that women are more likely to take the night shift
of caregiving because men spend more time in paid work, and thus have less time to do
caregiving (Burgard, 1192). This assumes that domestic responsibilities are less time-consuming
Among participants in Burgard’s study who were employed and had an unemployed
partner, 3.2 percent of women took the night shift, as compared with 0.9 percent of men
(Burgard). While this does show that employment does seem to somewhat affect who takes the
nightshift, the gap between employed men and women is still significant. In addition, people
who were in dual-earner homes showed a significantly greater gap between men and women,
with only 11% men reporting sleep interruption, while 32% of women reported the same.
Returning to Simba’s family, As Mufasa’s brother later points out to his hyenas, “It’s the
lionesses’ job to do the hunting” (The Lion King, Minkoff). If the lionesses (which, presumably,
includes Sarabi) are responsible for hunting, a time-consuming career to be sure, we must
assume that time availability due to occupation is not a viable explanation for Mufasa’s refusal to
resources, specifically breastmilk. Burgard’s research shows that mothers were more likely than
their partners to waken regardless of the particular need of the child. In fact, the decision of who
would care for the child’s needs seemed to occur when one parent reacted to the cue (such as a
cry) by waking up and the other did not, before the needs were determined (Burgard).
Cotrell and Karraker’s study of fifty mothers lends further evidence against the
eighteen reported exclusively formula-feeding, and thirteen reported a combination of the two.
Under the specialization hypothesis, one would expect that approximately twenty participants
would also report being the primary caregiver at night, about equal to the number of
In the case of our lion family, Simba’s wakeup call is specifically aimed at his dad, so
breastmilk is clearly not his motive for waking. Despite this, his father still rolls over and refuses
to wake, directing Simba’s mother to take responsibility (The Lion King, Minkoff)
Clearly, there are other factors involved in the disproportionate role women have in
nighttime caregiving.
The Resources theory suggests that the person who has the most resources has the power
to assign undesirable tasks to one that has less resources. This primarily refers to the idea that
men are more likely to provide more money for the family and are therefore able to assign
nighttime duties to the women, who contribute to the family through service.
This theory can be falsified for the same reasons the Time Availability theory was
eliminated: even working women are more likely to be assigned the night shift, regardless of
experience fragmented sleep because society expects women to fill the role of nighttime
caregiver, just as society expects a woman to fill other domestic responsibilities. This theory
calls the night shift “the third shift”. This refers to the idea that a working woman will come
home to care for spouse and children in an unpaid second shift followed by a third shift during
the night.
This theory is the one most heavily supported by Burgard’s study and by what I found in
Cotrell and Karaker’s study (Cotrell & Karakker, p. 210, both of which showed that women
external factors had little effect on their likelihood to take the nightshift. Through falsification
methods, it can be determined that societal expectations are the most likely cause of new
Under this theory, we can conclude that Mufasa expected Sarabi, regardless of her own
exhaustion and her contributions to the pride and irrespective of the purpose for Simba’s waking,
to take care of Simba at night due to his society’s traditional understandings of lionesses as the
primary caregivers of their cubs. In other words, society told him that Simba was Sarabi’s son,
Studies have shown that sleep fragmentation is more detrimental to subjective sleep
quality in postpartum women than the amount of time they are awake during the night (Gress, et
al., p. 384), as well as to the development of postpartum moods (Park, et al., p 8). Poor sleeping
patterns may result in, “exhaustion, impatience, lower ability to concentrate, and a poor quality
of life, which can all lead to an increased risk for postpartum depression” (Lewis, et al., p. 1).
Postpartum depression is deeply troubling for mothers, like myself, who want badly to bond with
a new child but find themselves either apathetic or irritable. While medications are available, the
abundance of untreated cases. In extreme cases, sleep fragmentation can lead to postpartum
psychosis, a dangerous state that requires hospitalization (Sharma and Mazmanian, p 98).
In addition to increased risk of psychological disorders, testing has shown its negative
effect on memory and psychomotor skills (Swain, et al, Abstract) and on growth and healing due
inability to reach slow wave (deep) sleep, the primary restorative sleeping stage (Burgard).
Research has also shown that the postpartum period has a negative effect on marital
satisfaction due to spousal perceptions of one another’s sleeping patterns (Ensana, et al.). In one
study, new mothers reported more sleep fragmentation than their male counterparts, but both
mothers and fathers reported equal fatigue in the weeks after delivery. Additionally, women were
more likely to sleep during the daytime than men (Gay, et al.). When women believe their
husbands are getting better sleep than they are because they are not waking in the middle of the
night to help, and men believe their wives are just taking naps all day while they themselves are
working tirelessly at work, there is a lot of room for misunderstanding and negative perceptions.
Postpartum women are in a difficult and dangerous position. With proper solutions, new
mothers will no longer feel that they must choose between caring for their child or caring for
their health.
Some specialists recommend being more selective in choosing when to respond to infant
distress at night. Rather than rushing to every beck and call, one should determine if the cry is
one of hunger and need, or if the child has merely woken unexpectedly and will shortly fall back
asleep (Gress, et al.). Unfortunately, this recommendation doesn’t account for the many children
who need more frequent feedings or cannot put themselves back to sleep because of innate
personality.
Napping is, perhaps, the most recommended solution to the effects of sleep
fragmentation. Unfortunately, opportunities for naps are not easy to find. Other priorities, such as
housework, homework, careers, older children, and others, often prevent mothers from taking the
time to lie down and restore themselves (Cotrell & Karakker, p. 210).
The solution must go beyond simple restoration and go to the source of the issue: fathers
should share the mothers’ nighttime responsibilities in order to decrease the frequency of
fragmentation. As has been discussed, there is little reason why fathers cannot take on some of
the nighttime caregiving responsibilities. While they cannot breastfeed, they can bottle-feed if
possible, change wet diapers, and sooth fussy babies. Paired as necessary with discretionary
response to wakings and with napping, shared responsibility for nighttime childcare would
greatly reduce the adverse effects women experience from sleep fragmentation in the postpartum
period.
Conclusion
many aspects of postpartum women’s lives, including their mental, physical, and social health.
When we consider everything that a mother must do to care for a child, including producing
milk, holding, transporting, and teaching, in addition to her other daily responsibilities, it is
baffling that society expects her to sacrifice her sleep. A mother cannot successfully fulfill all of
these duties and perform well without necessary restorative sleep. Not only does sleep
fragmentation affect her, but it affects the child that depends on her. Society depends on a
mother’s nurturing, which allows children to grow and develop and become the world’s new
leaders. How can we expect women to provide the best care for the world’s future leaders if they
Fathers or other partners should take equal responsibility in caring for a new child,
including sharing more equally in nighttime caregiving. In addition to the aid it would give
mothers, more involvement would allow for better father-child bonding in the first year. While
father involvement would mean that two parents will suffer from sleep fragmentation, sharing
the nightshift would significantly cut down the fragmentation frequency, and may also improve
nightshift duties is the most desirable solution to the postpartum sleep fragmentation crisis,
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