Abstract
This study examines sleep patterns and chronotypes in preadolescent children and their mothers’ sleep routines, highlighting familial impacts on sleep health. Insights may enhance occupational therapy for child well-being and family routines.
Primary Author and Speaker: Liat Hen-Herbst
Contributing Authors: Maayan Bar-Yehuda, Lital Mahlof, Maria Korman
This research investigates the associations between children’s sleep regularity and chronotype and their mothers’ sleep routines, addressing a gap in understanding the relationships between family environment and child sleep performance. Sleep is a foundational activity within the occupational therapy domain (American Occupational Therapy Association, 2020), and sleep participation, meaning taking care of personal needs for sleep, plays an essential role in children’s occupational performance, health, and well-being. Social jetlag (SJL) quantifies sleep regularity by measuring the difference between mid-sleep times on work/school days and free days (MSFsc) (Roenneberg et al., 2007). We utilized a descriptive cross-sectional design via an internet-based Mom-Child 24/7 (MCH24/7) survey, assessing sleep-wake behaviors of mother-child pairs. Mothers anonymously reported data about their own and their children’s sleep routines. Data was collected from 972 Israeli mother-child pairs (Mage: mothers 37.1 ± 5.7, children 5.8 ± 1.7, 47.7% of children were girls) using the ultra-short Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (µMCTQ). The analysis focused on sleep duration, SJL, and MSFsc. The chronotype (MSFsc, mid-sleep time on free days corrected for sleep debt) of mothers was 3:12 ± 1:18, while children had on average earlier chronotypes, 2:30 ± 1:04. Unexpectedly, children displayed a higher SJL (64.9 ± 47.7 min) than their mothers (46.6 ± 52.9 min), with significant correlations between mothers’ and children’s SJL and MSFsc (ρ = 0.23, p <0.05; 0.20, p <0.05 respectively). Although children’s sleep duration was within normal ranges (10.4 ± 1.1h), their SJL was elevated, suggesting significant irregularity in sleep timing across the week. The study highlights the relationships between children’s sleep timing and irregularity, and maternal sleep patterns, underlining the need for occupational therapy interventions considering family dynamics in managing children’s sleep health.
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2020). Occupational therapy practice framework: Domain and process (4th ed.). American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 74(Suppl. 2), 7412410010. https://doi. org/10.5014/ajot.2020.74S2001
Roenneberg, T., Kuehnle, T., Juda, M., Kantermann, T., Allebrandt, K., Gordijn, M., & Merrow, M. (2007, Dec). Epidemiology of the human circadian clock. Sleep Med Rev, 11(6), 429–438. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2007.07.005