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 Researchers compared sleep patterns that parents reported for
themselves and their kids to readouts from gadgets called actigraphs
that used motion detectors to assess how well children actually
slept. When the actigraphs said kids had slept just fine, the
parents with sleep struggles of their own still tended to report
sleep disturbances in their children.
“Parents who are stressed out and have poor sleeping quality are
more disturbed themselves by little noises and awakenings of their
children during the night than those parents who sleep better,” said
senior study author Dr. Helena Lapinleimu, a pediatrics researcher
at the University Hospital of Turku in Finland.
To see how well parents’ perceptions about children’s sleep matched
up with reality, Lapinleimu and colleagues studied 100 children
between 2 and 6 years old who attended 16 different daycare centers.
They asked the children’s biological parents to complete sleep
diaries for themselves and for their kids as well as health
questionnaires.
Among other things, researchers asked parents if their kids had
trouble falling and staying asleep, excessive sleepiness or
drowsiness, or disorders such as talking, jerking or cramping during
sleep.
Each night for a week, the kids wore actigraphs on their wrist, hip
or ankle. The devices counted periods of inactivity as uninterrupted
sleep and measured the duration and intensity of motion during the
night to assess disturbances.
According to the actigraphs, children typically slept around 8.5
hours a night. Most of the kids used the devices for each night of
the study, though about 8 percent of them missed at least one night.
Even after adjusting for factors like the child’s age, gender,
number of siblings, existence of chronic illnesses and medication
use, parents who reported poor sleep themselves were much more
likely to report sleep disturbances in their kids that were not
confirmed by the actigraphs.
One limitation of the study is that researchers didn’t have the
parents wear actigraphs, so it’s not clear if the parents who
reported sleep problems actually had them or only perceived
difficulties getting enough rest, the authors note. The broad age
range of the children may have also influenced the results because
kids tend to have very different sleep routines and needs from ages
2 to 6.
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Previous research has found two main reasons that poor parental
sleep quality is associated with over-reporting sleep problems in
kids, said Jocelyn Thomas, a psychology researcher at the Sleep
Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“Individuals who obtain insufficient sleep are more likely to attend
to and remember negative events in general,” Thomas, who wasn’t
involved in the study, said by email. “Additionally, individuals
with sleep difficulties are more likely to focus their attention
specifically on their sleep and the sleep of those around them.”
Because the parents didn’t wear actigraphs, the study results may
reflect parents’ negative perceptions about sleep that they apply to
themselves and their children, said Michelle Garrison, a sleep
specialist at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the
University of Washington.
The trouble with parents projecting sleep problems on their kids is
it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, Garrison, who wasn’t
involved in the study, said by email.
“It can lead to labeling their child as a `bad sleeper’ – and going
forward, it could harm the development of independent sleep habits
if the child internalizes the belief or if the parent’s belief
results in reduced opportunities for the child to learn and practice
healthy sleep habits,” Garrison said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1Un9ofv Pediatrics, online March 24, 2016.
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