You might think men are deliberately ignoring the sound of your baby crying so that they can grab more sleep while you get up - but a new study has found they really are less likely to hear the infant howling.
Men are more likely to be woken up by a car alarm, the wind howling or a fly buzzing.
But for women, a crying baby is the number one sound guaranteed to wake them up.
According to the results, the sound of a baby crying is not even in the top ten things to wake men.
Great - so now they have an excuse. "It's been scientifically proven I can't hear the baby..."
The tests were carried out by research laboratory MindLab as part of a study into the importance of a good night's sleep, commissioned by Lemsip.
MindLab used volunteers and measured brain activity while they were sleeping to carry out the study.
Psychologist Dr David Lewis of MindLab told the Telegraph: "There is nothing more likely to leave you feeling drained and depressed than disturbed sleep, especially when this happens over several nights.
"As this unique study shows while some sounds, for instance your partner coughing or snoring beside you, disturb men and women equally, other noises such as a howling wind cause men to be more disturbed than women.
"Women are more likely to be disturbed by a crying baby."
He reckons that this might be the way men and women have evolved, so that men are finely tuned to sounds which are associated with a threat to their children, while men are more sensitive to noises which could pose a threat to the whole family.
Apparently, just to make things even more unfair, men are more likely to be able to go back to sleep once they have been woken up.
What do you think? Is there any truth in these findings, in your experience?
Source: The Telegraph