Bedtime Strategies Parents use with their Children and their Effectiveness

Research has indicated that child sleep problems can have negative effects on their cognitive and socioemotional development. Additionally, parents are negatively impacted by child sleep problems. There are various bedtime strategies parents use in helping their child go to bed, but there is scant research regarding the strategies and the effectiveness of each. It is also unknown how parent and child characteristics may impact the strategies parents use. Using a theoretical model of child sleep (Sadeh and Anders, 1993; Sadeh, Tikotzky, & Scher, 2010, Tikotzky, 2017; Appendix A), the main goal of the study was to determine how parent and child factors contribute to the bedtime strategies parents use, the frequency of use per week, and the effectiveness of the strategies. Participants included 138 parents (with children from 2-5 years). Questionnaires were available online and included demographics and measures for child temperament, bedtime strategies, parental depression, parental stress, and child rearing attitudes. Results indicated the top 5 strategies used most frequently by parents in putting their child to bed were comfort items, tucking in, lights off, reading books, and taking a bath. Parents also indicated these strategies as being the most effective. These findings support literature regarding the importance of having a consistent bedtime routine with children. Results also indicated that both parent and child characteristics impacted the strategies parents used on children and the effectiveness of the strategies. Parental stress was shown to have a small impact on the strategies parents chose while child temperament composites, negative affect and surgency, showed the strongest effects. Overall, the findings from this study stress the importance of parents being consistent in bedtime routines (and other routines, in general), as this increases child’s feelings of safety and security and enhances the parent-child interactions (Fiese et al., 2002; Spagnola & Fiese, 2007). Additionally, child temperament does impact the bedtime strategies parents use with their children and parents should consider the attributes of their child’s temperament in choosing the strategies that will be most effective in putting their child in bed.