Poster #143 - Maternal Stress, Sleep, and Parenting: Processes of Stability and Change Across Toddlerhood

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Toddlerhood is characterized by increased child mobility and willfulness, which can substantially contribute to parent stress (Fagot & Kavanagh, 1993). Toddlerhood also involves notable decreases in daytime sleep (Acebo et al., 2005) and the total amount of sleep (Galland et al., 2012), which are likely associated with changes in maternal sleep (Mindell et al., 2015). Despite general adult research showing links between stress and sleep (e.g., Akerstedt et al., 2002), the connections between stress, sleep, and functioning for parents have been relatively understudied, especially for parents of typically developing toddlers. To date, only one study using objective measures of parent sleep and parenting with mothers of toddlers has shown that poor and insufficient sleep was concurrently associated with less positive parenting, above and beyond other forms of stress (McQuillan et al., under review). The present study aims to extend this work by longitudinally testing (1) bidirectional links between stress and sleep deficits to determine whether higher levels of stress predict more sleep problems, or whether more sleep problems predict higher perceived stress, or both and (2) whether parent sleep deficits mediate the link between stress and parenting.

433 mother-child dyads participated at child ages 30, 36, and 42 months. At each assessment, mothers completed the Parenting Daily Events scale (Crnic & Greenberg, 1990), the Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale (CHAOS, Matheny et al., 1995), and the Reilly Role Overload Scale (Thiagarajan et al., 2006). Mothers also wore an actigraph, the MicroMini Motionlogger from Ambulatory Monitoring, Inc., for 7 days. The Cole-Kripke algorithm, which has been validated for adults, was used to extract meaningful sleep variables (Cole et al., 1992). Sleep components reflecting duration, timing, variability, and activity were analyzed based on previous research (Staples et al., under review). Two observers rated maternal responsiveness, verbal responsivity, and involvement during the hour before the child’s bedtime using a Post-Observation Questionnaire and two scales from the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment inventory (HOME; Bradley & Caldwell, 1979).

Structural equation modeling was used to conduct confirmatory factor analyses to form latent constructs of stress, sleep, and parenting at each assessment and to test a cross-lagged panel model. As depicted in Figure 1, bidirectional links between parental stress and sleep deficits were found. More parental stress significantly predicted increased sleep deficits 6 months later. The reverse association, with sleep deficits predicting increased parental stress, was also found, but it was only trending towards significance at 30 to 36 months. Additionally, both parental stress and sleep deficits at 30 months predicted less growth in positive parenting 6 months later. An unexpected mediation effect also emerged with more observed positive parenting during the hour before the child’s bedtime predicting better parent sleep, which in turn predicted reductions in parental stress. This may suggest that parents who are highly responsive and involved during their child’s bedtime routine may prioritize sleep, practice good sleep hygiene, and promote children’s sleep, all of which could enable better parent sleep, which appears to have downstream positive effects on perceived stress.

Authors

• Maureen E. McQuillan, Indiana University
  Presenting Author

• John Bates, Indiana University - Bloomington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Angela D. Staples, Eastern Michigan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kirby Deater-Deckard, University Massachusetts
  Non-Presenting Author