Linking Sleep with Kindergarten Functioning, and Bedtime Activities that Support Child Sleep

• In Event: 2-156 - Child Sleep, Parenting, and School Readiness

Integrative Statement

Kindergarten entry is a stressful transition for parents and children, and the quality of this transition, and of school readiness more broadly, is multiply determined. Although prior work has demonstrated predictive relationships between sleep and daytime functioning, more evidence of sleep’s relationship with kindergarten performance is needed (Mollborn, 2016). The present study focuses on the role of sleep as an important but understudied predictor of children’s social, emotional, and academic outcomes in kindergarten. Also addressed are linkages between children’s bedtime activities and child sleep, a question informed by evidence showing children’s environments and activities at bedtime impact sleep quality (Ferretti & Bub, 2017).
Data were collected for one week, at four timepoints (e.g. Summer- July/Aug., Fall- Sept., Winter- Nov./Dec., and Spring- Apr.), from 105 families in an ongoing study of parenting and sleep during the transition to kindergarten. At each timepoint, children wore an Actiwatch Spectrum Plus activity monitor to collect sleep data and daily parent phone interviews gathered descriptive data on children’s activities 1 hour before bedtime. At timepoints during the school year teachers and study staff completed measures of academic, social-emotional, and executive functioning.
Children’s weekly mean nighttime sleep duration correlated moderately across timepoints
(rs = .40 to .60, ps < .001), averaging 9.76 hours per night (SD = 35 minutes), much lower than the American Academy of Pediatrics (2016) recommended 10-13 hours of sleep per night for 3-5 year olds. Longer sleep durations at the summer timepoint significantly linked to better kindergarten outcomes for many of the variables (see Table 1). Few significant associations emerged between kindergarten outcomes and concurrent sleep durations. These results suggest that though mean weekly nighttime sleep duration is relatively consistent throughout the kindergarten year, longer nights of sleep over the summer has a lasting impact on school readiness.
To identify patterns of pre-bedtime activities practiced in long (M = 10.68 hours, SD = 12.68 min., N = 19), medium (M = 9.72 hours, SD = 19.71 min., N = 68), and short (M = 8.72 hours, SD = 12.05 min., N = 18) sleep duration groupings, children’s activities from the hour before bedtime were coded into one of eight categories (see Table 2). Chi-square tests confirmed significant differences in the practice of three activities categories. Children in the long sleep duration group practiced more quiet play, less screen time, and fewer structured or adult activities the hour before lights out. Further analysis of a small sample of the raw data found, for children with a short sleep duration, screen time was commonly the only or last nightly activity.
Considering the links between kindergarten functioning and summer sleep duration, and that the majority of children in this study slept less than the recommended 10 hours per night, more attention must be paid to child sleep and the practices that aid longer sleep duration. Additional analyses will examine changes in specific kindergarten functioning in relation to changes in sleep across the kindergarten year, and specific bedtime routines that support longer child sleep throughout kindergarten.

Authors

• Corey Jean Whitesell, Penn State University
  Presenting Author

• Karen Bierman, Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Orfeu M. Buxton, Department of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Brian Crosby, Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Almeida, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin Sarsfield, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Douglas Teti, Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author