Sleep of the parents

How does sleep evolve for couples after childbirth? Is there a link between the sleep habits of mothers and fathers?

After childbirth, parents experience notable degradation that can persist for several years. In this study, we aimed at analysing the evolution of sleep characteristics (duration and quality) of mothers and fathers up to 3 years after childbirth. Thus the objectives are :

• 1) to find groups of mothers, fathers and couples with different sleep patterns from brith to 3 years of the child,
• 2) the relationships between the identified groups of mothers and fathers,
• 3) to identify behaviors associated with sleep habits within couples' sleep groups.

How to characterize sleep?

Cohort volunteers answered several sleep questionnaires after the birth of their child (3 months, 18 months, 2 years, and 3 years). Responses to questions were used to calculate, for mothers and fathers:

• 1) night-time sleep duration,
• 2) daytime sleep duration,
• 3) subjective sleep loss.

Main results

We identified three maternal, paternal, and couple sleep groups: a well-sleeping group, a group having subjective sleep deprivation, and a short-sleeping and having subjective sleep deprivation group.
The study results suggest that women were more likely to adopt their male partners’ sleep patterns leading couples to have similar sleep characteristics.
The study also shows that couples having first child born in the autumn were less likely to belong to the sleeping group with short sleep and sleep deprivation. Furthermore, couples with later paternal chronotype, which means the fathers having later bedtime or wakeup time, were more likely to belong to the sleeping group with short sleep and sleep deprivation.

Why is this study innovative?

This study better characterizes parents’ overall sleep patterns during the first three years of the child’s life by identifying maternal, paternal and couple’s sleep evolution across multiple measures of sleep (night-time, daytime, and perceived sleep deprivation).

What’s the further step?

We will explore how the child’s sleep characteristics evolve from birth to 5 years and the links between child sleep characteristics and the parents sleep characteristics.