Impact of work routines on parents' and children's sleep during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effects of parental sleep and work arrangements on children's sleep duration during the national lockdown period, referred to as ‘Circuit Breaker’ (CB), due to COVID-19. Methods: Cross-sectional, anonymous, online questionnaire to parents with school-going children aged between 3 and 16 years. Child and parental sleep duration in relation to change in parental work arrangements, housing type and number of individuals in the household as reported by parents were evaluated. Descriptive statistics and tests of comparison were used to evaluate data. Results: School-going children (n = 593) had a mean age of 8.68 (SD = 3.65; median 7) years. Both, fathers and mothers had gains in sleep during CB (based on self-reported sleep data), compared to pre-CB. Change in both maternal and paternal sleep duration positively correlated with change in child sleep duration (based on parent-reported sleep data) among all children (r2 = 0.27, p < 0.001 and r2 = 0.17, p < 0.001 respectively); pre-schoolers mirrored their mothers’ sleep more closely. Parents who changed to working from home during the CB (compared to working from outside home previously) had the greatest gains in sleep during this period. Housing type was not significantly associated with change in child sleep duration from pre-CB to CB. Conclusions: Greater gains in sleep in parents was associated with working from home during CB. Child sleep duration mirrored gains in parental sleep, especially in pre-school and primary-school-going children. Optimising parental sleep may therefore be one of the means to improve child sleep.