Sleep is the one thing all parents can agree on – they don’t get enough of it.

Parenthood is an amazing adventure – but it does come at the price of missing out on ZZZs.

But one particular group of parents have found a way around that – in the form of mini-naps.

Thousand of naps per day, that is.

A study, led by the Neuroscience Research Center of Lyon in France, worked to understand how the chinstrap penguins handled breeding and parenting their babies after they were born.

Researchers used remote EEG monitoring to detect changes in the penguins’ brain activity.

What they found was that the penguins took on average more than 10,000 four-second naps, which they said, added up to 11 hours of sleep throughout the day.

“If microsleeps do fulfill sleep functions, then animals faced with a continuous need for vigilance might resort to this sleep strategy,” the study reported.

The study was the first of its kind to show that an animal can function with only small moments of sleep, according to study co-author Paul-Antoine Libourel, a researcher at the French CNRS in the Neurosciences Research Center of Lyon.

They are able to perform their sleep needs by accumulating 600 bouts of four-second sleep per hour, which is more than 14,000 bouts of sleep a day,” he said.

Libourel said that microsleeping has been noted in other species, including humans. However, it was “unusual,” he said, to see this in penguins.

A chinstrap penguin with their babies. Photo by Getty

“Usually, other animals who have microsleeps do it during a transition to a more consolidated sleep,” he said. “It seems that the chinstrap penguins were able to maintain such sleep fragmentation without any obvious physiological cost, as they successfully breed their chicks.”

One main reason, the researches said, is that this type “could be an adaptation to face the need to remain vigilant and protect their egg and still have the benefit of sleeping.”

Another reason is that summers, when Antarctica has 24/7 sunlight, sleep can be extra difficult to come by, according to National Geographic.

National Geographic senior editor Christine Dell’Amore, who was not part of the study, did find it fascinating considering how it is such a relatable issue.

Many human parents can “relate to how challenging it can be to get enough sleep with a little one,” she said.

“The fact that this penguin species has figured out this clever strategy of micronapping is very impressive,” Dell’Amore said.

Chinstrap penguins. Photo by Getty

“It’s also very relatable research, since it shows how our problems are often similar to those of wild animals: All parents, regardless of their species, need sleep,” she said.

Libourel cautioned that humans should probably not try to “sleep like a penguin.” He said this sort of broken up sleep is known to be harmful to a human’s psyche.

“However, having minute-long (not second-long) naps is known to be beneficial for people,” Libourel added.

“(But) we all know that if (humans) sleep one hour versus two or three or four, there is a cumulative effect of more sleep,” Libourel said. “And we suspect here that this is the same for the penguins.”

Watch below for a look at these amazing penguins!

Sources: NY Post | Scientific American