IALH Research Fellow Christine Ou has co-authored a new research article entitled Patterns of Nighttime Caregiving and Parent-Infant Sleep Outcomes: A Latent Class Analysis. Guanyu Chen is the collaborating author. The article was published in SLEEP.
Abstract:
Introduction: Parental-infant sleep and sleep problems are a significant source of stress for parents. Although greater paternal involvement in childcare is broadly associated with improved maternal and infant sleep outcomes, there is limited understanding of how different patterns of nighttime caregiving are distributed across families and their unique implications for parent-infant sleep. Identifying distinct caregiving arrangements and their relationships with sleep outcomes could provide critical insights into optimizing nighttime care practices for families.
Methods: We recruited 138 parent dyads who had an infant between 6 to 18 months of age to complete an online questionnaire about parental division of nighttime care, parental sleep, infant sleep, parental mental health, and relationship satisfaction.
Results: These nighttime caregiving patterns were identified as: Mother Exclusive, Mother Dominant, Mother More than Partner, Equal Contribution, and Partner More than Mother. Significant differences in parental sleep duration and quality and number of infant night wakes were observed across groups (p < 0.001). Patterns involving greater paternal involvement, such as Equal Contribution and Father Major, were associated with reduced parental fatigue and improved parental sleep quality.
Conclusion: A greater proportion of nighttime infant care is provided by mothers compared with partners. The findings suggest that greater paternal involvement is associated with better parental sleep quality. Longitudinal and experimental studies are needed to further investigate causal relationships between nighttime caregiving patterns and family sleep outcomes. Additionally, exploring barriers to greater paternal involvement and strategies to encourage equitable caregiving could inform interventions aimed at optimizing family functioning and well-being.
To read the full article, see https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsaf090.0485