Infant Sleep and Feeding Pattern: Effects on Maternal Sleep

Abstract

Factors contributing to maternal sleep when infants are 4 to 10 weeks of age were examined. Twenty-four-hour sleep-wake diaries collected from 37 mother-infant dyads in the home environment were summarized to describe total, longest, and mean sleep period; synchrony of maternal and infant sleep; and feeding frequency and duration. Regression and post hoc analysis of variance were used to examine factors contributing to maternal and infant sleep. Maternal sleep is driven by infant sleep and feeding pattern. The minimum and maximum numbers of infant sleep episodes per day were 6 and 15, respectively, and mean infant total sleep was 13.47 hours (SD 1.73). Mean maternal total sleep was 7.18 hours (SD 1.51), with half of the mothers reporting less than 7 hours of sleep per 24 hours. Mean number of infant feedings was 11.14 (SD 3.27), with 11 infants (29.7%) receiving 13 or more feedings per 24 hours; minimum and maximum times per feeding were 15 and 41.7 minutes, respectively. Male infants had more sleep episodes, shorter sleep periods, and less sleep than females, and these gender differences resulted in shorter and more fragmented sleep for mothers. Findings suggest there is continued need for interventions to improve maternal sleep following childbearing.

Maternal depression and infant temperament characteristics

“…Previous research describes the fragmented, and in some cases, asynchronous sleep of motherbaby dyads (Thomas & Foreman, 2005). Thomas and Foreman report the longest sleep maternal sleep period was 3.6 hours.…”

Effects of a single night of postpartum sleep on childless women's daytime functioning

“…In an attempt to isolate the impacts of sleep fragmentation from total sleep time, the time in bed of each participant from baseline to sleep fragmentation night was preserved. This resulted in a total sleep time that was only slightly higher (M=7.46hr) than the duration we found using actigraphy data during postpartum weeks 2–12 (M=7.2hr) [3], that Thomas and Foreman found using self-reported sleep diaries during postpartum weeks 4–10 (M=7.18hr) [72], and that Filtness et al found from sleep diary self-reports at 6, 12, and 18 weeks postpartum (M=7.33hr) [73]. However, others have reported lower total sleep times for postpartum women, especially in the immediate postpartum period.…”

Postpartum Sleep in New Mothers and Fathers

“…As previously described, infant sleep cycles are shorter than adults, thus leading to a dyssynchrony among the parent infant dyad. Young infants also have a high metabolic demand, which leads to a high frequency of nocturnal infant feedings that disturb maternal sleep [28]. Additionally, mothers report sleep disturbances that are driven by worry about the baby, sleeping arrangements, and exhaustion from the birth [24].…”

“…In a cluster RCT with 328 mothers at maternal child health centers, Hiscock et al [28] found fewer intervention group mothers reporting poor sleep quality at three (63% vs. 72%, adjusted p=0.16) and five (52% vs. 63%, adjusted p=0.01) months post-randomization and insufficient sleep (34% vs. 45%, adjusted p=0.02) at the five month postrandomization assessment only. The authors did not specify which PSQI items were used for these assessments.…”