I am lucky to get 2 hours. 3 is a luxury. We have a sleep number bed which "tells" me how I slept. It is not always accurate, but close, I often get a 10 or 15 out of a 100. It has gotten worse since early summer when I could at least fall asleep. I get up at 4:30 am as DH gets ready for work and fix coffee, be company before he goes to work.
The severe lack of sleep has increased since both parents are failing rapidly and it is painful to watch. We have been spending many hours getting them groceries, cooking food, picking up prescriptions and mail etc for over a year. It has taken a lot of convincing and many months to even find suitable AL. It is more than 100K a year and rising rapidly. They are paying, but we are wearing out tires, spending a fortune on car insurance and gas and our free time has dwindled since we live 25 miles away. We are getting ready to move them to AL next month, but have to empty the house, prep it for sale, etc. It is a monumental process. With the holidays and cold NH weather, we hope to sell and close on the house before spring. My worst fears were that this would drag on into the winter and here we are. Depending on how my parents adapt to their new living arrangements, it may get better next summer...which is a very long way away.
Farmers also followed this split sleep schedule until electricity became common in rural NH in the 1930's. They would get up and stoke the fire, eat leftovers, read, correspond during quiet time and then go back to sleep. Likely, this was much the same in other rural areas in the US. Ever wonder why farmers had so many kids?