Preschoolers' self‐regulation and developmental trajectories of sleep problems in early childhood

Abstract

AbstractPresent study explores developmental trajectories of sleep problems and its associations with self‐regulation. Sleep problems, emotional, and behavioural problems were reported by mothers of 128 children aged 2 and 4 years, and children's self‐regulatory abilities were laboratory tested with “hot” (e.g., delay of gratification) and “cool” (e.g., cognitive control and anticipation) tasks at age 4. Two latent class mixture models for trajectories of sleep problems were built with separately incorporated “hot” and “cool” self‐regulation as the distal variables. In both models, nearly two thirds of children developed a stable low sleep problems trajectory, while 19.5% with distal variable of “hot” self‐regulation and 32% with distal variable of “cool” self‐regulation displayed a decreasing sleep problems trajectory. These children scored highly on emotional and behavioural problems and moderately on inhibitory control. With regard to “hot” self‐regulation as a distal variable, 17% of children had very low self‐regulatory abilities and high scores on emotional and behavioural problems yet remained good sleepers at preschool age. Conversely, with regard to “cool” self‐regulation, 14% of children displayed an increasing sleep problems trajectory. They scored high on emotional and behavioural problems at age 4 and obtained the highest scores on “cool” self‐regulation and medium scores on “hot” self‐regulation. To conclude, hot and cool systems of self‐regulation could provide distinct interactional effects with sleep problems throughout early childhood.Highlights The study analyzes mother‐reported sleep problems trajectories from toddlerhood to preschool age and preschoolers' laboratory tested self‐regulation. High cognitive inhibitory control is linked with increasing sleep problems, and low affective inhibitory control is related with medium or decreasing sleep problems in considerable number of children. Parents and clinicians should help young children with high cognitive control and anticipation cope with anxious thoughts, especially before bedtime.