Q&A: Why sleep might be the best Mother’s Day gift

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Instead of flowers or jewelry for Mother’s Day this year, consider giving the moms in your life more sleep.

Adults should sleep between seven and nine hours a night, according to the National Institutes of Health. For moms, that can drop to less than five hours per night for the first year or two after having a baby. Now, researchers are beginning to understand how a mother’s sleep quality is a pathway to the quality of her parenting and attachment to her child.

Doug Teti, distinguished professor of human development and family studies and professor of psychology and of pediatrics at Penn State, has studied parenting quality, infant and parent attachment and general infant and early childhood development for more than 20 years. According to Teti, much of a parent’s caregiving and parenting activity happens around bedtime and during the night.

In the Q&A below, Teti, who has published over 30 papers on how sleep affects children and parents, explained why sleep in the context of parenting is so important.

Q: Everyone needs sleep. Why is quality sleep for moms especially important?

Teti: Sleep has a restorative function — it helps the body build up energy reserves, helps us regulate emotions and improves cognition, focus and attention. In prior studies with adults who aren’t parents, researchers demonstrated that people stop functioning properly when they lose sleep.

Of course, parenting requires large stores of energy for proper attention, good judgement and proper emotional regulation to respond to the stress related to parenting. The majority of mothers in U.S. households say they do more when it comes to childcare responsibilities than their partner or co-parent, according to a survey by Pew Research Center. Seventy-eight percent of moms say they do more to manage their children’s schedule and activities, and 58% of moms say they provide more comfort and emotional support to their children.

These daily demands mean that sleep is especially important for moms to promote and facilitate quality parenting.

Q: How can we support better sleep for moms?

Teti: Everyone can benefit from better sleep. Pay attention to things that disrupt sleep, like staying up late or spending time on a phone before bed. Avoiding caffeine, alcohol and large meals before bed can help, too. Nurture an evening environment that is conducive to sleep, including low lighting and relaxing music or soundscapes — anything that helps downregulate the nervous system and makes the body more receptive to falling asleep. These types of behaviors are healthy for everyone in the household, and they can be particularly helpful for mothers.

If a mom expresses the desire for better sleep, she and her partner can take steps to help her foster better sleep hygiene. Importantly, support the mom in sticking to the changes that help her get better sleep. While sleeping in on Mother’s Day is a great gift, moms need quality sleep every night to be the best for themselves and their families.

Q: So, better sleep helps moms be better prepared to deal with the stresses of parenting. How is quality parenting important to infant and child development?

Teti: There are a lot of different ways to define good parenting, but at its core, good parenting means a parent is aware of their child’s social cues, interprets them appropriately and responds effectively. Good parenting leads to secure attachment between children and parents.

Securely attached children explore their environment when they are content and safe but seek out the parent for comfort when faced with stressful or fear-inducing situations. Children with insecure attachments show an imbalance in these tendencies; they often either over-rely on the parent during times of low stress or under-rely on the parent during times of high stress.

Secure attachment has a cascading effect. The child learns to effectively read and interpret social cues and respond appropriately from the parent. They learn to regulate their emotions and effectively deal with stressful situations. Secure attachment is also cognitively and linguistically stimulating for children. This pathway from good parenting to secure attachment ultimately leads to a well-functioning and emotionally aware child who is prepared to move into the wider world.

All of these things — quality parenting, secure attachment and well-adjusted children — can begin with a good night’s sleep for moms and caregivers. One of the best ways to support a child’s development is to make sure that parents are supported in being their best and most rested selves.

Q: As Mother’s Day approaches, how can dads and partners support mothers?

Teti: Generally speaking, father or partner involvement is good for mothers, children and the family as a whole. Being a good partner is about being a good co-parent. A co-parent is any person the mother is partnering with to raise a child, whether that is a live-in romantic partner, biological relation or other live-in caregiver. Co-parenting refers to the coordination of parenting efforts between the individuals involved in raising the child.

Partners need to work with the mother to facilitate her successful parenting and pick up some of the parenting burden themselves. What fathers and partners may not realize is that facilitating quality sleep — handling bedtime parenting so the mom can go to bed earlier, getting up in the night to care for the child, or parenting in the early morning to allow mom to sleep later — might be one of the most impactful things they can do for their relationship with the mother and for the development of their children.

Extended family and friends can and should fill this role, as well. “It takes a village,” as they say. Social support from an extended network is especially important for single mothers and women who do not have an engaged partner. Raising children in a larger family structure — as long as the family’s input is positive and healthy — can support healthy growth and development for the child.

Any way that a partner or family member can support these needs — including sufficient sleep — for a mother is a great gift to her at any time of the year.