Bedsharing in Early Childhood: Frequency, Partner Characteristics, and Relations to Sleep.

ABSTRACT: Bedsharing (sharing a bed with others during sleep) in early childhood (3-5 years old) is common across Western and non-Western societies alike. Though prior work indicates that bedsharing may relate to impairments in child sleep quantity or quality, the majority of studies conducted in young children are limited to parent-child bedsharing and rely almost exclusively on caregiver reports to measure child sleep. Here, the authors endeavored to gain further insights into the diversity of bedsharing practices among children in the United States, including how different bedsharing partners (caregivers, siblings) might impact actigraphy-derived measures of children's sleep. Using a sample of 631 children ages 2:9 to 5:11 years, we found that over 36% of children bedshared in some form overnight

SUBMITTER: Mason GM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8522355 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul-Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature