Critical Issues for Parenting Toddlers to Sleep

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

Integrative Statement

The sleep habits children establish with their parents at home influence the development of cognitive skills (Molfese, et al, 2013; Wolfson & Montgomery-Downs, 2013). Translating what is known about sleep habits from research and clinical findings into usable information for parents is the focus of this presentation. Data and discussion on three topics germane to the role of sleep and children’s functioning will be presented: Interpreting estimates of nighttime sleep duration from parent report vs. objective records, understanding linkages between sleep sufficiency and brain processing, and the role of bedtime routines in the development of child sleep habits will be discussed.
To begin, well-established findings detail differences in nighttime sleep duration reported by parents based on bedtime and rise time and calculations of sleep duration from actigraphs (small, portable devices that record physical motion). Parent reports typically overestimate sleep duration by 111 minutes compared to actigraph data in 3 to 9.5 years olds (Dayyat, et al, 2011), 24 min in 4 to 9 year olds (Nelson, et al 2014), and 153 minutes in 30 to 42 month olds (Molfese, et al., 2015). The nature of these discrepancies is unclear. Understanding how and why parents overestimate their children’s sleep duration, and the impacts of these overestimations on children’s daytime functioning will be discussed.
Second, whether assessed objectively or by parent report, sleep onsets for some children can be delayed – sometimes by hours – due to distractions in the sleep environment (e.g., playing with books and toys, electronic devices, noisy home environments). Because rise times are typically set due to parent work or children’s preschool/daycare schedules, delayed sleep onset impacts nighttime sleep duration, resulting in tired children who exhibit behavior and learning difficulties. Studies of short sleep duration point to impacts on neural processing (speed and distribution of brain area involvement) during task performance (Molfese et al, 2008). Even mild reductions (1 hour per night for 1 week) in sleep time in 6 to 8 year olds resulted in differences in event-related potential activation patterns (Molfese, et. al., 2013). These differences suggest impairments in children’s abilities to respond to heavy demands on memory, attention, and inhibitory skills identified as critical for school readiness. Findings will be interpreted to provide some clear, evidence-based recommendations to parents about the types of distractions that can delay sleep onset in their children, and why it is important to minimize them.
Finally, sleep duration is impacted by children’s sleep schedules and routines. Large variations in bedtimes across week nights and between week nights and weekend nights are reported (Iwata et al., 2012; Randler, et al., 2012) as are impacts of such variability on preschool sleep and behavior problems (Bates, et al., 2002). Consistent bedtime routines (i.e., activities parents engage in with children before lights out) appear to have positive sleep benefits for young children’s sleep (Mindell et al., 2009; Staples, et al., 2015; Prokasky, 2018). Evidence of the impacts of consistency and variability in routines on the quality and quantity of child sleep will be presented and discussed.

Authors

• Victoria J Molfese, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  Presenting Author

• Dennis Lee Molfese, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amanda Prokasky, University of Nebraska- Lincoln
  Non-Presenting Author