According to a study released last year, new parents can expect to lose sleep for six years after the birth of their child. As a father to two young children, South African blogger, the Don Father, understand what it feels like to be sleep deprived!

In a recent collaboration with Sealy South Africa, Don shared some of his family’s tried and tested tips for getting more sleep. “It’s a fact: Life will be a bit chaotic for the first few months. But new parenthood is not the time to try to live up to the unrealistic ideal of the ‘perfect parent’,” he writes in this blog post on The Don Father blog.

This is an important point. Even if the baby or child is sleeping, parents will sometimes be kept awake by their worries and anxieties, or simply planning for the next day, week or month. Results from the parents and sleep study, showed that while parents’ sleep patterns did improve significantly over time. But, to some degree, sleep disruption continued even six years out, regardless of parental income or whether a mother or father was raising a child alone or with a partner. If you’re feeling sleep deprived, you’re not alone

Sealy understands family sleep

Of course, if there’s a brand that understands family sleep, it’s Sealy! That’s why we craft mattresses for the entire family – whether it’s a single bed or an extra length king sized bed for the whole family. And it’s not only the bigger people we cater for, did you know Sealy also produces baby and cot mattresses? Our cot mattress (132cm x 66cm x 10cm) gently cradles your baby from day one, while our baby mattress (140cm x 70cm x 10cm) is recommended for a small child under the age of four. Both mattresses come with a free mattress protector.