A Healthy Child Needs a Healthy Brain, A Healthy Brain Needs Healthy Sleep

Professor Tikotzky reported that during the 3^rd month of pregnancy, mothers with objective frequent and prolonged night wakings (more maternal insomnia symptoms-Blog Post 178) are more likely to co-sleep with their infants at 6 months.  Other studies link bed sharing with infant sleep problems (Blog Post 82).

Co-sleeping (room-sharing or bed-sharing) was studied at 3 months and 6 months by Professor Douglas Teti.  He found that co-sleeping (compared to baby sleeping in another room) was associated with more maternal fragmented sleep and decreasing sleep duration for the mothers between 3 and 6 months of age.  Also, “Cosleeping was associated with mothers’ reports of less positive and more negative coparenting (Blog Posts 17 and 18)”.  “These findings suggest that mothers may compensate for an unsupportive partner by seeking out their infants during the night and setting up sleep arrangements that promote proximity and physical closeness (co-sleeping).”  

Additionally, mothers in co-sleeping arrangements were less emotionally available with their infants at bedtime (Blog Posts 18 and 57).  

Taking these studies and those in Blog Post 178, linkages emerge connecting children’s sleep problems and maternal insomnia, maternal depression, maternal eveningness preference (‘owls’), mothers who are less emotionally available at bedtime, co-sleeping, poor coparenting quality, and low partner support.  

So, if your child is not sleeping well, and you suspect that these multiple variables or others (Blog Post 45) are present, a simple sleep solution such as “Move the bedtime earlier” may be difficult or impossible to implement or be ineffective.  If so, please consider professional help for you and your family to help your child sleep better.