If you have not already done so, please read Blog Posts 1 through 5 that describe how sleep is important and beneficial. I will post specific information for parents and children based on my book, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” Please do not be put off by my book’s length. This is a reference book. Read only the topic of interest to you.
MOTHERS
Blog Post 17
Mothers can help or hinder their child’s healthy sleep. The studies presented here were published in peer-reviewed medical journals. However, many studies did not include fathers. Therefore, it would be wrong to assume that challenges that mother’s experience are all within-the-mother problems. If there is an absent, abusive, alcoholic, or addicted father, and he is not included in the study, a false impression might be created that it is the mother who has a problem. Some fathers (Blog Post 39), perhaps those with certain cognitive biases, experience parenthood with symptoms of agitation, frustration, irritability anxiety, depression, or risky alcohol use. Mothers’ mental health status might, or might not, be strongly influenced by fathers’ mental health status. Therefore, it is incorrect to conclude from the following discussion that the mother’s mental health status is the direct or only cause of the behaviors and problems discussed.
STRENGTHS
Emotional availability (EA) of the mother at bedtime is comprised of four items:
∙ Sensitivity
∙ Structuring
∙ Nonintrusiveness
∙ Nonhostility
When mothers were more emotionally available. The infants slept more throughout the night. Mothers who were ranked high on EA had infants with earlier bedtime and lower nighttime cortisol (indicating less stress) compared to infants whose mothers ranked low on EA.
Separate from the concept of EA is the notion of “Parenting Practice” at bedtime. Parenting practice at bedtime means whether or not, after soothing and being put down:
∙ The parent stays in the room until the child falls asleep.
∙ How long the parent is in contact with the child, such as for feeding or cosleeping.
High maternal EA in combination with less close contact at bedtime was associated with more infant sleep at night. However, high EA had a strong effect on infants rated high in “surgency” defined as an enthusiastic positive affect (more expressive and warmer in interpersonal interactions, more smiles and laughter) and a weak effect on infants rated low in surgency (see Differential Susceptibility, Blog Post 14).
CHALLENGES
Blog Post 70-Owls versus Larks
Some adults are ‘owls’, they feel better in the evening, prefer to go to bed later, and, when able, wake up later. Other adults are ‘larks’, they feel better in the morning, prefer to go to bed earlier, and wake up earlier. Dr. Isabel Morales-Munoz (Blog Post 61) studied about a thousand families before the child was born, and at 3, 8, 18, and 24 months, and observed that some children at each age have both a high proportion of day sleep compared with total sleep and late bedtimes; the mothers of these children tended to be “owls” instead of “larks.” As a group, the children of mothers with “eveningness preference” required more time to fall asleep after being put down and had more sleep difficulties. Early bedtimes, not just sleep duration, makes for healthier sleep (Blog Posts 7, 22, 68, and 69)! The father’s preference for eveningness or morningness had no effect. However, you might ask: Aren’t some children owls who really come alive in the evening and thrive on late bedtimes? After all, some of my friends are owls and they appear to be just fine.
The answer is clear:
• Research using objective measures of sleep and salivary melatonin shows that in the age range of 30–36 months, the number of definite evening types (owls) is zero.
• Another parent-response study found evening types (owls) in this same age range to be 0.9 percent of children. In fact, they observed that between birth and 8 years of age, evening types (owls) occurred in less than 2 percent of children at every age.
The vast majority of young children are larks. Larks sleep better with early bedtimes.
