Overnights and Overkill: Post-Divorce Contact for Infants and Toddlers

Abstract

In post-divorce and post-separation contexts, overnight visitation is being recommended with increasing frequency for non-resident parents. However, there is confusion as to whether sleepover access serves the best interests of young children. My purpose in this paper is to raise awareness and to encourage debate on children's needs regarding overnight contact during early developmental phases. I review available research and reflect critically on emerging trends with reference to attachment theory, practical experience, parental and gender rights, cultural considerations, and adversarial legal contexts. I suggest that insistence on overnight contact in highly contested matters may be a form of overkill that serves parental and legal demands more than the best interests of children, and conclude that individual cases should be assessed with reference to, amongst other things, processes of separation, reunion, and attachment.

Very extensive nonmaternal care predicts mother–infant attachment disorganization: Convergent evidence from two samples

“…Reviewing this research, Strous (2011) noted that although there is general agreement that very prolonged separations from the primary caregiver place stress on the developing attachment relationship, "the crucial question is, for what length of time can an infant or toddler comfortably tolerate repeated separations from the primary attachment figure?" (p. 203).…”

“…Reviewing this research, Strous (2011) noted that although there is general agreement that very prolonged separations from the primary caregiver place stress on the developing attachment relationship, “the crucial question is, for what length of time can an infant or toddler comfortably tolerate repeated separations from the primary attachment figure?” (p. 203). One reason that hours of nonmaternal care were not related to attachment security in the NICHD SECCYD study may be because differences in amount of mother–infant interaction time between employed versus stay-at-home mothers were not as great as one might suppose (Friedman & Boyle, 2008).…”