INFANT SLEEP ARRANGEMENTS IN THE FIRST YEAR: THE ROLE OF FAMILY SYSTEMS IN SLEEP ECOLOGY AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Open Access
- Author:
- Shimizu, Mina
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 07, 2017
- Committee Members:
- Douglas M. Teti, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Douglas M. Teti, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Sy-Miin Chow, Committee Member
Gregory M. Fosco, Committee Member
Jose Soto, Outside Member - Keywords:
- Infant Sleeping Arrangements
Family Systems
Culture
Sleep
Child Development - Abstract:
- Co-sleeping, defined as parents’ sleeping with their infants in the same bed or in the same room, is a widespread parenting practice across the world. In Western cultures, however, co-sleeping is not strongly endorsed. Past studies in Western countries have reported the negative impact of co-sleeping practices on infant sleep, family life, and children’s socio-emotional development. However, additional studies have not supported the premise that co-sleeping undermines children’s healthy development and sleep quality. This suggests that infant sleep arrangements per se may not be a determinant of child development. This dissertation aimed to explicate the contradictions in literature regarding the consequences of infant sleeping arrangements and examined the linkages between infant sleeping arrangements, family life, and infant sleep and development, through cultural and family systems perspectives. Data were drawn from a larger NIH-funded study of 167 families. Study I used multilevel modeling to examine the associations between parenting beliefs, sleeping arrangements, and mothers’ perception of infant sleep behavior, and the ethnic group differences in these associations. The results suggested that mothers who co-slept with their infants beyond 6 months (persistent co-sleeping) were more likely than mothers who moved their infants to a separate room by 6 months to report greater frequency of the infant’s night waking and perceive the child’s night waking to be problematic. Further, when mothers were more likely than fathers to endorse close parent-child relationships, mothers’ perceptions of positive co-parenting decreased and negative coparenting increased among persistent co-sleeping families. However, these results were found only among European American families. Sleeping arrangements were unrelated to mothers’ perception of infant sleep behavior among ethnic minority families. In addition, the association between inter-parental discrepancies in parenting beliefs and coparenting quality among ethnic minority families was not significant. Cross-lagged panel models further suggested that when European American mothers perceived a poor alliance with their partner, they brought their infant to the parent’s bedroom. Built on family systems theory, Study II examined whether sleeping arrangements per se or family processes were associated with families’ well-being in the first year and children’s socio-emotional development at a later age. The results of the latent linear growth models for two parallel processes indicated that greater coparenting quality over time was predictive of a reduction in mothers’ depression over time. This association was found, independent of whatever sleeping arrangements parents used across the first year. Further, the results of the latent linear growth models suggested that greater coparenting quality over time was predictive of children’s fewer externalizing problems, more regulation, and more competency at a later age, independent of whatever sleeping arrangements parents used across the first year. Indeed, sleeping arrangements were related to none of the child outcomes. Together, the results of this dissertation suggest that (1) it is not sleeping arrangements per se but a mismatch between cultural beliefs about sleep arrangements and what parents actually do that leads co-sleeping mothers to be sensitive to infant sleep behaviors and vulnerable to a risk for unfavorable family functioning, and (2) it is not sleeping arrangements per se but family processes that play an important role in parents’ well-being and children’s socio-emotional development. This dissertation provides new insights about the importance of culture and family functioning in studies involving infant sleeping arrangements. Parents, pediatric professionals, and parenting experts must focus less on arguing the benefits or pitfalls of particular sleeping arrangements and, instead, increase their awareness of the importance of the health of the family systems.