Working from home would increase sleep time for babies and reduce daytime sleepiness for parents.
- The infants slept an extra 40 minutes per night on average.
- The time spent by infants in front of screens has increased, as has parental stress.
The development of telework is one of the direct consequences of the current health crisis. Although this has had a number of negative consequences, such as increased time spent in front of screens or an increase in stress, anxiety and depressive syndromes, it has had some benefits. In a new study, published on July 24 in the journal sleep medicineAustralian researchers from Flinders University suggest that working from home would increase babies’ sleep time and reduce daytime sleepiness for parents.
40 minutes of extra sleep
The researchers observed 1,518 American infants aged 1 to 18 months. To measure changes in infants and their parents who experienced the various lockdowns, they used state-of-the-art automated video-somnography technology to collect objective measures of sleep. To this, they added online questionnaires completed by parents. This allowed them to compare the sleep of infants, but also the habits of exposure to screens, between the end of 2019 and the end of 2020.
The results showed that the infants slept an extra 40 minutes per night on average. This resulted in parents reporting less daytime sleepiness. On the other hand, the latter reported a slight increase in depressive symptoms. The daily exposure time of children to screens has increased by 18 minutes.
Control time spent in front of screens
“Extending some of these conditions, such as allowing parents to work from home, should be considered as part of efforts to improve the well-being of parents and infants as they transition into the post-pandemic period.”, says Michal Kahn who is the co-lead author of the study.
In this sense, the results highlight the need to raise awareness to reduce the time spent in front of infants’ screens and the daytime stress on the mental health of parents. “Applying harm reduction strategies, such as encouraging parents to choose adequate digital media content, incorporating movement when using screens, and prioritizing screen-free time, may be an appropriate pragmatic approach”, she offers.
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