Goodness of fit between prenatal maternal sleep and infant sleep: Associations with maternal depression and attachment security

Abstract

The current study prospectively examined the ways in which goodness of fit between maternal and infant sleep contributes to maternal depressive symptoms and the mother-child relationship across the first years of life. In a sample of 173 mother-child dyads, maternal prenatal sleep, infant sleep, maternal depressive symptoms, and mother-child attachment security were assessed via selfreport, actigraphy, and observational measures. Results suggested that a poor fit between mothers' prenatal sleep and infants' sleep at 8 months (measured by sleep diary and actigraphy) was associated with maternal depressive symptoms at 15 months. Additionally, maternal depression mediated the association between the interplay of mother and infant sleep (measured by sleep diary) and mother-child attachment security at 30 months. Findings emphasize the importance of the match between mother and infant sleep on maternal wellbeing and mother-child relationships and highlight the role of mothers' perceptions of infant sleep.

Maternal lack of sleep in the first two years after childbirth: Perceived impacts and help‐seeking behaviors

“…The questionnaire was developed by Simard, the first author, who is a child psychologist and has research expertise in child sleep and the parent‐child relationship. The questions on parents’ prenatal and the child's sleep (Table 1) were inspired by the idea that a greater decline in sleep quantity during the perinatal period or a mismatch with the infant's sleep may be a source of parental distress (Newland et al., 2016; Tomfohr et al., 2015). The question on the impacts of lack of sleep was constructed to cover a variety of life domains (e.g., romantic relationship; Medina et al., 2009), and to shed light on life functioning and satisfaction rather than focussing on anxiety or depression.…”

“…Moreover, there is evidence that mothers who perceive that they had better prenatal sleep are more distressed by postpartum sleep loss. For instance, in a study assessing the “goodness of fit” between maternal and infant sleep, poorer infant sleep was associated with maternal depression only among mothers who reported sleeping longer in the prenatal period (Newland et al., 2016). Thus far, much of the research on the effects of postpartum sleep disturbances has focused on depression and anxiety.…”

“…Finally, a fourth objective was to explore the specific profile of preferences for some intervention modalities among parents who are most in need of help (low self‐efficacy, high concern for the child's sleep, high negative impact of lack of sleep). This study includes parents of children aged up to 24 months because sleep deprivation and its negative effects likely extend from the first months postpartum to the toddler years (e.g., Newland et al., 2016). Therefore, we were interested in assessing the needs of and interest in sleep interventions among parents of infants and toddlers.…”

Early life experiences: Meaningful differences within and between families

“…The first focused on the relationship between mothers' quality of sleep, the number of hours that they slept, and the number of times that they attended to their newborn infant during the night. Previous research has shown that the goodness of fit between mothers' and infants' sleep predicts maternal depression and attachment security (Newland, Parade, Dickstein, & Seifer, 2016), and that the frequency with which mothers attend to their babies informs their subjective sleep quality (Gress et al, 2010). Here, we predicted that mothers, who slept more hours and attended to their baby fewer times compared to other mothers (i.e.…”

Behavioural sleep interventions in infants: Plan B – Combining models of responsiveness to increase parental choice

“…Disturbed and inadequate sleep in infants in the first year of life can be problematic with approximately one‐third of parents reporting an infant that requires parental assistance for initiating and/or reinitiating sleep . Such sleep disturbance can be problematic for the whole family and is related to a substantial increase in the risk of parental depression and anxiety, poorer parent/infant attachment early cessation of breastfeeding, significant sleepiness, fatigue and subsequently poorer psychosocial functioning, parental and marital discord and even an increased incidence of child abuse such as shaken baby syndrome …”