Maternal sleep during the first ten years of the child’s life

Main sleep disturbances during motherhood occur during the first weeks after childbirth, but sleep continues to be affected until the baby sleeps through the night. However, most studies focus their attention up to 18 months after delivery. It is our interest to determine sleep quality of mothers with children from 0 to 10 years sleep, and the sociocultural factors associated with it. We designed a cross-sectional quantitative study consisting of an anonymous survey online that included the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), sociodemographic data and nocturnal family dynamic questions. The main findings reveal that the quality of maternal sleep was poor for all mothers regardless of the child’s age. Specifically, during the first two years after childbirth maternal sleep quality was particularly low, with a significant improvement towards age 3, worsening again at the ages of 4 and 5 of the child, to finally improve towards the ages of 8 to 10. Additionally, higher levels of education and performing physical activity increased the probability of having good sleep quality. Conversely, child’s awakenings increased the odds for the mother of having poor sleep quality at all stages of the child. For mothers with younger children, additional aspects of their children’s sleep and social and nocturnal family dynamic also predict their sleep quality. The current results expose that maternal sleep disturbances extend far beyond the postpartum period. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report that focuses on maternal sleep until the age of 10 years of the child.