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Sleeping and Coping Patterns in Early Childhood in the Context of COVID-19

Fri, April 9, 10:15 to 11:15am EDT (10:15 to 11:15am EDT), Virtual

Abstract

Introduction: Sleep supports adaptive regulation in early childhood. Compromised sleep early in life is associated with mood and anxiety disorders. Reciprocally, children faced with stressful events may exhibit sleep disturbances such as increased sleep latency, nighttime awakenings, and nightmares. Thus far, studies have separately examined the role of sleep on adaptive processing, and the effects of stress on sleep. However, the current COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to examine how childhood sleep and children’s adaptive behavior (i.e., ability to cope) interact. Specifically, it is uncertain how prior sleep patterns may predict children’s coping during a stressful event (the pandemic), and how prior coping skills may influence children’s sleep during the pandemic. As early morning wake times have been associated with depression and anxiety (Koffel & Watson, 2009), we hypothesized that earlier wake onset would be associated with poorer adaptive skills among children, and that adaptive skills may bidirectionally influence child sleep disturbances in response to COVID-19.

Methods: Preschool-age children (n=17; 33-71 months), who participated in a study before the onset of COVID-19 restrictions (between July 2019-February 2020; T1), were re-evaluated during the COVID-19 stay-at-home advisory (April-May 2020; T2). Actigraphy and parent-reported sleep diaries were collected both at T1 and T2 (n=15). To measure coping behavior, parents completed the Children’s Coping Scale Revised (T1 and T2), which includes subscales for positive coping, negative expression, and negative inhibition.

Results: Children slept longer early in the pandemic (T2) compared to before (T1; t(11)= -2.14, p=.034). Moreover, children woke up later at T2 than T1 (t(11)=-2.62, p=.024) and wake onset at T1 significantly predicted wake onset at T2 (r=.76, p=.004; Fig 1). Regarding children’s coping, children displayed less positive coping at the pandemic onset (T2) compared to prior to the pandemic (T1; t(16)=3.68, p=.002) and greater negative expression during the outbreak than before (t(16)=-6.56, p<.001). With regard to the sleeping/coping relationship, wake onset before the pandemic was not related to negative expression at that time (r=-.42, p=.119). However, later wake onset during the pandemic (T2) was associated with lower negative expression at T2 (r=-.70, p=.012). Further, later wake onset before the outbreak was associated with less negative expression during the pandemic (r=-.52, p=.048) but this relation became non-significant when controlling for wake onset during the pandemic (r=.09, p=.801). Reciprocally, children who, on average, woke up later during the pandemic had significantly lower negative expression prior to COVID-19 (r=-.60, p=.038). However, after controlling for wake onset prior to the outbreak, the association is no longer significant (r=-.41, p=.207).

Conclusion: Our results suggest that children’s sleep may be an indicator of early childhood coping mechanisms in certain contexts. Specifically, the relation found between wake onset and negative expression only after the COVID-19 outbreak indicates that sleep and coping behavior may regulate each other under stressful conditions. Further, the significant association between T1 and T2 wake onset suggests that pre-pandemic sleep may be indicative of sleep during the pandemic which in turn may promote better coping during COVID-19.

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