Abstract
PurposePrevious research indicates that mothers take a larger responsibility for child care during the night and that they have more disturbed sleep than fathers. The purpose of this study was to determine whether such a sleep imbalance exists in working parents of young children, and the extent to which it depends on the way sleep is measured. The study also examined whether imbalanced sleep between parents predicts parental stress and relationship satisfaction.MethodsSleep was measured for seven consecutive days in 60 parenting couples (average age of the youngest child: 3.3 years ± SD 2.5 years). Actigraphs were worn across the week, and ratings of sleep, parental stress, and relationship satisfaction were made daily.ResultsMothers perceived their sleep quality as worse (b= −0.38 scale units, p<0.001), with more wake periods (b= +0.96 awakenings, p<0.001) but with longer sleep duration (b= +32.4 min, p<0.01) than fathers. Actigraphy data confirmed that mothers slept longer than fathers (b= +28.03 min, p<0.001), but no significant differences were found for wake time, number of awakenings or who woke up first during shared awakenings. Furthermore, there was no difference in whether mothers and fathers slept sufficiently. The level of sleep imbalance between parents did not predict parental stress. A larger imbalance in subjective sleep sufficiency predicted decreased relationship satisfaction for fathers (b= −0.13 scale units, p<0.01) but increased relationship satisfaction for mothers (b= 0.14 scale units, p<0.05). No other sleep imbalance measures predicted relationship satisfaction.ConclusionOur findings are in line with previous research on sleep in men and women in general, with longer sleep and subjective reports of sleep disturbances in women, rather than previous research on sleep in parents of young children. Thus, we found no evidence of a sleep imbalance when both parents have similar working responsibilities.
Highlights
Parenthood is often characterized by sleep problems, such as poor sleep quality and shortened sleep duration.[1,2,3] Previous studies indicate an imbalance in how each parent is affected by a child’s birth,[1,4] with mothers often reporting worse sleep than fathers.[1,3,5,6] This is not surprising given that mothers are often the primary caregiver of children,[7] and more likely to respond to their children’s physical needs and worry more about the children during the night than fathers do.[7]
We found support for a subjective sleep imbalance in that mothers reported poorer sleep quality and having more waking periods, but with longer sleep duration, than fathers
Our finding that there is a sleep imbalance in subjective sleep quality and wake periods, unfavorable to the mother, is in line with previous research showing that mothers, and women in general, perceive their sleep as more disturbed than fathers/men do.[1,3,4,5]
Summary
Parenthood is often characterized by sleep problems, such as poor sleep quality and shortened sleep duration.[1,2,3] Previous studies indicate an imbalance in how each parent is affected by a child’s birth,[1,4] with mothers often reporting worse sleep than fathers.[1,3,5,6] This is not surprising given that mothers are often the primary caregiver of children,[7] and more likely to respond to their children’s physical needs and worry more about the children during the night than fathers do.[7]. In the main bulk of previous research on sleep in couples, the role of primary caregiver is either unclear,[3,5,6,17] or can be interpreted as being the mother’s.4,7,14. In two of these studies,[7,14] it was suggested that mothers had the role of the primary caregiver at night, regardless of their parental leave status and regardless of whether both par ents were working or not. There is a limited understanding of how parents objectively sleep when both are working, as most research in this field has neglected to assess parental leave status.[1,3,5,6,17,18]
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