Abstract
Sleep problems reported by parents affect 20% to 30% of infants. Few studies focused on the longitudinal association between infant feeding practices and sleep, especially in France. Analyses were based on 8,696 infants from the French national birth cohort ELFE. Collection of feeding practices from birth to 10 months allowed for the identification of trajectories of use of baby cereals and thickened formula by group‐based trajectory modelling and calculation of duration of any breastfeeding (BF) and age at complementary feeding introduction (CFI) excluding baby cereals. Total sleep duration (TSD), night waking (NW) and sleep onset difficulties (SOD) were reported at age 1. Associations between feeding and sleep were tested by multinomial logistic regressions. BF duration ≥6 months was associated with parent‐reported frequent NW, SOD and TSD ≤ 12 h/24 h at age 1. For TSD and SOD, this association was no longer significant after accounting for parental sleep‐related practices. Early use of baby cereals (≤5 months) was associated with poor sleep. Early CFI (<4 months) was associated with shorter TSD and SOD but not NW. Early use of thickened formula (only <6 months) was related to poor sleep at age 1 (NW and SOD), whereas late (around 6 months) use of thickened formula was associated with better sleep. BF duration ≥6 months was related to poor sleep at age 1 but not after adjustment on 1‐year parental sleep‐related practices except for NW. The use of baby cereals or early CFI was not related to better sleep at age 1.
Highlights
Sleep is a key domain of developmental processes of early life and is fundamental for cognitive and physical growth of infants and Blandine de Lauzon-Guillain and Sabine Plancoulaine contributed to this work.children (Cappuccio et al, 2008; Gruber et al, 2012; Reynaud, Vecchierini, Heude, Charles, & Plancoulaine, 2018)
Longitudinal studies showed that the presence of parent-reported sleep problems in preschool and school-aged children was positively associated with high scores on validated scales measuring emotional symptoms, hyperactivity/inattention (Cappuccio et al, 2008; Reynaud et al, 2018) and conduct problems later in childhood (Al Mamun et al, 2012; Byars et al, 2012; Meltzer, Plaufcan, Thomas, & Mindell, 2014)
Breastfeeding duration ≥6 months was associated with parental presence to fall asleep at age 1 (38.5% yes vs. 21.6% no), and their interaction was significant for sleep onset difficulties (p < 10−4); the analyses were stratified on parental presence to fall asleep at age 1 for the last model
Summary
Sleep is a key domain of developmental processes of early life and is fundamental for cognitive and physical growth of infants and Blandine de Lauzon-Guillain and Sabine Plancoulaine contributed to this work.children (Cappuccio et al, 2008; Gruber et al, 2012; Reynaud, Vecchierini, Heude, Charles, & Plancoulaine, 2018). Frequent night waking and short sleep duration as reported by parents and defining subjective sleep problems are prevalent for children less than 3 years old, with prevalence ranging from 20% to 30% Longitudinal studies showed that the presence of parent-reported sleep problems (sleep onset difficulties, night waking and short sleep duration) in preschool and school-aged children was positively associated with high scores on validated scales measuring emotional symptoms, hyperactivity/inattention (Cappuccio et al, 2008; Reynaud et al, 2018) and conduct problems later in childhood (Al Mamun et al, 2012; Byars et al, 2012; Meltzer, Plaufcan, Thomas, & Mindell, 2014). Predominant breastfeeding for more than 4 months was found associated with low risk of persistent reported sleep-onset difficulties between age 2 and 5 years (Murcia et al, 2019)
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