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Early years

07th May 2019

Mark Zuckerberg built his wife the most thoughtful present a mum could get

Major husband points.

Anna O'Rourke

Snaps for Mark.

If a dad knows what’s good for him, he’ll do his best to keep the mum in his life happy and well-rested.

Should your other half need some inspiration he may well look to Mark Zuckerberg.

The tech boss and dad-of-two has just designed something to help make sure his wife Priscilla gets as much sleep as possible.

The ‘sleep box’, as he’s named it, is a small wooden box that lights up faintly between 6 and 7am every morning.

 

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A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck) on

The idea behind the invention is to keep her from looking at her phone and becoming restless and anxious early in the morning, he explained on Instagram.

“Since we’ve had kids Priscilla has had a hard time sleeping through the night,” he wrote.

“She’ll wake up and check the time on her phone to see if the kids might wake up soon, but then knowing the time stresses her out and she can’t fall back asleep.

“So I worked on building her what I call the “sleep box”. It sits on her nightstand, and between the hours of 6-7am it emits a very faint light — visible enough that if she sees it she’ll know it’s an okay time for one of us to get the kids, but faint enough that the light won’t wake her up if she’s still sleeping.

“And since it doesn’t show the time, if she wakes up in the middle of the night, she knows to just go back to sleep without having to worry about what time it is. So far this has worked better than I expected and she can now sleep through the night.”

Designing the box is, he continued, “one of the best ways I can think of to express my love and gratitude” to his wife.

Bless.

 

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Mark and paediatrician Priscilla are parents to two little girls; three-year-old Maxima and 19-month-old August.

Having children has, Mark has said, helped to cement his vision for Facebook – to connect people.

“We’re going to keep focusing on giving everyone a voice and helping them stay connected to their friends and family but understanding that now we need to do more to help bridge some of the divides in society and bring the world closer together.”