We’ve all heard about the value of loving touch in parent-infant bonding. It’s the most important thing parents can do to help develop that attachment between child and parents. Believe it or not, infants who suffer disrupted sleep patterns as a consequence of family feuds can face problems in their development.
That’s what a recent study revealed when researchers assessed the relationship between marital instability and children’s sleep problems such as getting to sleep or staying asleep. Published in the journal Child Development, the study found that instability in a parent’s relationship when the infant was nine months old still affected the child when she was 18 months old. Whoa.
According to Professor Gordon Harold, one of the study authors, “Regulated sleep is essential during infancy for healthy brain and physical development. Disrupted sleep patterns early in life have serious implications for children’s long-term development…How couples relate to each other, specifically how they manage conflicts in their everyday lives, is also recognized as having significant implications for children’s long-term emotional, behavioral and academic development.”
The study of 300 children and their parents/caregivers further revealed that parents’ relationship instability at 9 months predicted infant sleep problems at 18 months, but not the other way around. So, how parents relate to each other affected children’s sleep patterns rather than sleep patterns of children affecting the quality of the parents’ relationship.
Interesting info. Read more about the study at Medical News Today.
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