Sleep arrangements and maternal adaptation in infancy

Abstract

Among the many decisions that parents make regarding child-rearing practices, an important one involves sleep arrangements. Little is known about the relationship between chosen sleep arrangements, parents' adaptation to these choices, parental sleep quality, spousal support, and parental distress. Forty-five mothers and fathers with infants 1 to 24 months old completed measures of parental attitudes and practices regarding sleep arrangements. Shared sleep with one's infant was associated with poorer parental adaptation to infant sleep disruption, and this was true even when parents endorsed the practice of sharing sleep with their infants. Among mothers, shared sleep and poorer adaptation to infant sleep were significantly associated with elevated depressive symptoms, poorer sleep quality, and spousal criticism directed to mothers about where the infant slept during the night. For mothers, criticism from their spouses about where the baby slept, mothers' sleep quality, and depressive symptoms mediated the link between sleep arrangements and maternal adaptation. Results emphasize the importance of taking into account individual differences in the quality of parents' adaptation to infant sleep behavior, a construct largely ignored in the child sleep literature to date, in understanding linkages between infant sleep quality and infant-parent outcomes.

Mother-Child Bed-sharing in Toddlerhood and Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes

“…In contrast to previous studies, we did not find an association between maternal depressive symptoms and bed-sharing, which may be because studies that have found an association between maternal mood and bedsharing have generally focused on younger children's sleep (ie, those aged 0 -24 months) and maternal mood closer to the postpartum period, 22,23 whereas our study examined bed-sharing between the ages of 1 and 3 years.…”

“…For example, some mothers may freely choose to bed-share, while others may do so out of necessity because of household crowding. Some research suggests that the outcomes of bed-sharing may depend on whether mothers choose to bed-share 22 or whether bed-sharing occurs in reaction to a child's sleep problems. 35,36 Unfortunately, the present study did not capture that information, because it was not explicitly designed to study sleep habits.…”

“…These predictors were selected based on past studies identifying child age, parental education, SES, the number of children in the home, maternal depressive symptoms, and single parent status as correlates of bedsharing. 1,[19][20][21][22] We also included maternal parenting behaviors (supportiveness, negative regard, and detachment) that may be associated with bed-sharing. Associations between bed-sharing across ages 1 through 3 years and a range of cognitive and behavioral outcomes at age 5 years were then examined.…”

“…We also expect that maternal education will be negatively associated with bed-sharing, and that maternal depressive symptoms will be positively associated with bed-sharing. 21,22 We expect bed-sharing to be bivariately inversely associated with cognitive and behavioral outcomes owing to the higher prevalence of bed-sharing among lower SES and racial and ethnic minority families. Furthermore, we expect to find associations between bedsharing and poorer cognitive and behavioral outcomes, even in a multivariate context.…”

Infant and maternal factors associated with maternal perceptions of infant sleep problems

“…frequent night wakings) that mothers find problematic may vary across families. Support for this view comes from recent work by Countermine and Teti (2010), who emphasise the role that parental adaptation to infant sleep behaviours can play in negative outcomes. They found that poorer adaptation to infant sleep behaviours was significantly associated with maternal depressive symptoms and sleep quality.…”