This is me, in waves. When I become conscious of my crappy behavior, I take care to course correct. It's doesn't last though and I start to get burned out and stubborn and unpleasant. It's not a thing of pride. It's a known issue that I've only ever avoided while unemployed.

I knew a guy who claimed he only ever slept 3 hours a night. :) There was nothing obviously wrong with him at all. Older guy, too. His job was his passion, though, which I imagine helps quite a bit. I doubt he had to drag himself out of bed ever.

Some people have a weird tendency to talk up how little they sleep like it's some point of valor.

Some people can do 6 hours a sleep a night for a long time and be fine but I don't think there's much support for maintaining health on 5 or fewer for long periods of time.

Sleep is important and people need to find ways to get what they need. Even people with infants need outside support so they can get what they need. It's not something to be embarrassed about.

Companies should be very cognizant of the types of constraints they may be putting on a work-life balance. Those that don't obviously treat employees as inherently disposable.

Another unappreciated aspect of sleep is how much of it one needs depending on their age. As I've gotten older, I've noticed that I need far less sleep. I still try to get 8 hours if I can, but most of the time I get away with 6 or 7 just fine and I get up much earlier in the morning. I think adolescents need more like 9 hours of sleep, but for some reason we (in America anyway) make kids get up earlier than most adults and give them work to do at home so they have less time to get to bed early, giving them all the incentive to stay up later. Adults trivialize sleep, which is funny because in high school and college it seemed agreed upon by everyone that we actually needed that extra hour or two. Teachers and parents would tell us that we were merely "slacking off" if we slept for more than 8 hours and didn't get up at the buttcrack of dawn.

Millennial parents undoubtedly have their own set of problems distinct from past generations, but I hope they've learned by now that their parent's views on sleep don't need to be repeated just as they're not repeating the 9-to-5 butts-in-seats mentality that is no longer a universal.

Some people just don’t need much sleep.

Sure, and the short sleep gene people are brought up here in this thread a bunch.

But that's not < 4 hours a night without naps for long periods of time.