Anyone with kids knows sleeplessness is a part of parenthood. Between feeding, teething, and other disruptions, studies have estimated that new parents lose about 2.5 hours of sleep a night over the first year. This has gotten me thinking – how much sleep do we really need?

How much sleep we need changes as we age. A newborn should get between 14-17 hours a day (sounds heavenly to me), while a school aged child should be getting a good 9-11 hours. For teenagers it should be 8-10 hours…..but good luck prising them out of bed before noon.

As an adult, you’ve probably heard that you need 8 hours of sleep a night. It’s not clear where this figure came from, but it seems you can get by on a bit less.

A huge study, involving over a million people, has concluded that 6.5 hours is a more accurate estimate of how much a healthy adult needs.

6.5 hours doesn’t seem like a huge amount. But what happens if we don’t even get that much sleep?

A sleepless night here or there won’t do much harm. But missing those 6.5 hours on a regular basis will leave you mentally foggy, you’ll find it hard to concentrate, and increase your risk of depression.

Long term, a lack of sleep can have more serious health consequences. It increases the likelihood of weight issues, high blood pressure, heart conditions, and even diabetes.

On the other hand, is it a problem if we sleep too much? I love a good sleep in on the weekend, but if you’re sleeping more than 9 hours a night it could be a problem.

Oversleeping has been linked to many of the same health conditions sleeplessness – including depression, obesity, and heart conditions, as well as cognitive impairments.

When it comes to sleep it seems we need to be like Goldilocks – we shouldn’t have too much, or too little. We need just the right amount.

I recently read a story about an ultra-marathon runner who stayed awake for 61 hours while running 320km. 61 hours is pretty impressive, but not even close to a record. In 1964 Randy Gardner set a world record by staying awake for 264.4 hours… that’s just over 11 days.

Within a month this record was broken by Toimi Soini, who stayed awake for 276 hours. But even these efforts pale in comparison to those of Maureen Western, who, in 1977, stayed awake for a whopping 449 hours, or 14.7 days.

While physically possible to stay awake this long, all of these people suffered some pretty serious side effects, including inability to concentrate, extreme moodiness, and hallucinations.

The good news for my friend is that the short-term sleep deprivation that comes with a teething baby is probably not going to kill her. The bad news is, I’m not coming over to babysit…