Sleep as a Predictor and Outcome of the Parent-Infant Relationship

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

The transactional model of infant sleep (Sadeh & Anders, 1993) postulates dynamic and bi-directional influences between children’s sleep problems and their social environment. Most of the research on parenting and sleep has focused on parent-infant interactive behavior around bedtime as a predictor or outcome of infant sleep problems, with little attention to the impact of sleep on parent-infant daytime relationships.

This symposium addresses this gap by presenting new work that examines direct and indirect links between sleep in infants and parents and between socio-emotional development (with a special emphasis on the parent-infant relationship) across the first two years.

The first presentation demonstrates predictive indirect links between objectively assessed maternal sleep quality during the infants’ first year and infant’s attachment quality at 12 and 18 months, mediated by maternal emotional availability at bedtime. The second presentation draws from an ongoing longitudinal study that examined infant, fathers’ and mothers’ sleep quality in relation to parent-infant bonding at 4 and 8 months postpartum, finding that paternal depressive symptoms moderate the associations between infant sleep and father-infant bonding. The third presentation reports significant associations between higher parent-induced emotional security during the pre-bedtime period and better objective toddler sleep outcomes, and demonstrates how child temperament moderates this association.

Taken together, these presentations highlight the importance of examining the role of parent-infant sleep as a predictor and outcome of parenting quality, and of the nature and quality of the infant-parent relationship as it develops over time.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Liat Tikotzky, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Discussant

• Douglas M Teti, The Pennsylvania State University

Individual Presentations

• Longitudinal Associations Between Maternal Sleep Quality and Infant-Mother Attachment: The Mediating Role of Maternal Emotional Availability - Presenting Author: Christine Kim, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Non-Presenting Author: Liu Bai, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Non-Presenting Author: Brian Crosby, Pennsylvania State University; Non-Presenting Author: Douglas M Teti, The Pennsylvania State University

• Parental and Infant Sleep in the Postpartum Period: Links with Parent-Infant Bonding - Presenting Author: Dar Ran-Peled, other Ben Gurion University of the Negev; Non-Presenting Author: Avel Horwitz, Ben-Gurion University; Non-Presenting Author: Omer Finkelstein, Ben Gurion University; Non-Presenting Author: Gal Meiri, Soroka University Medical Center, Beersheva, Israel; Non-Presenting Author: Liat Tikotzky, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• Parent-Induced Emotional Security During the Pre-Bedtime Period and Objective Toddler Sleep: Moderation by Temperament - Presenting Author: Caroline P. Hoyniak, Washington University in St. Louis; Non-Presenting Author: John E Bates, Indiana University - Bloomington; Non-Presenting Author: Victoria J Molfese; Non-Presenting Author: Kathleen Moritz Rudasill, Virginia Commonwealth University; Non-Presenting Author: Kirby Deater-Deckard, University of Massachusetts Amherst