Parent Sleep Predicts Parenting Quality and Coparenting Among Mothers and Fathers of Kindergarten Children

• In Event: Factors Influencing Parenting Quality

Abstract

Sleep has been identified as a critical bioregulatory mechanism associated with multiple domains of health and daily functioning among adults (Hirshokwitz et al., 2015). Few studies however, have considered the link between sleep and parenting, and among these few, there has been an exclusive focus on mothers. Short, poor-quality, and irregular maternal sleep is associated with less sensitive and less positive parenting, including bedtime among infants and toddlers (Bai et al., 2020; McQuillan et al., 2019). The present study investigated linkages between sleep duration and lability and mothers’ and fathers’ emotional availability with their children during bedtime parenting observations, and between these same sleep parameters and mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of co-parenting in a sample of families with children making the transition to kindergarten. It was hypothesized that short sleep and higher night-to-night lability in parent sleep would predict less emotionally available parenting and poorer coparenting.

Data for this investigation were drawn from mothers and fathers in 222 families who participated in assessments in the late summer before the start of kindergarten (T1) and after the start of kindergarten in the early fall (T2). Participants wore AW-64 actiwatches (Philips/Respironics, Inc) for 7 consecutive nights during each assessment period and were used to derive the average sleep duration (number of minutes asleep from sleep onset to morning wake time) and lability in sleep duration (standard deviation of sleep minutes across all nights). Both parents reported their perceptions of positive and negative co-parenting using the Coparenting Relationship Scale (Feinberg et al., 2012). Trained, reliable observers scored each parent’s bedtime emotional availability (EA) behaviors towards their child from video recordings of a single evening at each timepoint using the Emotional Availability Scales (Biringen et al., 1998). A mean score of emotional availability, as well as EA components of non-hostility, non-intrusiveness, and sensitivity were examined.

Actor-partner interdependence models were fit to examine relations between each parent’s sleep and their parenting outcome, as well as potential partner effects, at T1. For mothers, sleep duration was associated with greater positive coparenting (Figure 1A). For fathers, sleep duration was associated with greater observed EA (Figure 1B). A partner effect of mother’s sleep on father’s EA also emerged. In addition, mother’s sleep lability was associated with lower EA (Figure 2A), non-hostility (Figure 2B), non-intrusiveness (Figure 2C), and sensitivity (Figure 2D). A consistent pattern of partner effects indicated mother’s EA and its components were predicted by father’s sleep lability (Figure 2A-D). For fathers, lability in sleep was associated with sensitivity at bedtime and was also predicted by partner sleep(Figure 2D).

Similar relational patterns between parent sleep, parents’ EA, and coparenting perceptions were found at T2 (not depicted). Findings suggest that longer parent sleep is associated with positive co-parenting, and lability in sleep is associated with less emotional availability, particularly among mothers, as well as several partner effects.

Additional analyses will examine longitudinal relations between parents’ sleep at T1 and parenting and coparenting at T2. Findings suggest that interventions aimed at promoting parenting should incorporate efforts to promote parent sleep

Authors

• Ekjyot Kaur Saini, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author

• Ulziimaa Chimed-Ochir, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Liu Bai, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Kaitlin Marie Trexberg, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Brian Crosby, Pennsylvania State University

• Douglas M Teti, The Pennsylvania State University