Caregiver Experiences with Young Children's Sleep

Sleep is considered an essential aspect of our mental and physical well-being and plays an important role in the body’s metabolic regulation, emotion regulation, performance, memory consolidation, brain recuperation processes, and learning (Perry, Patil, Presley-Cantrell, 2013). In this study, the researcher is investigating how sleep disruptions in Early Childhood [EC] may impact self regulatory skills and attachment to caregivers. Through an online survey with questions adapted from the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire [BISQ] (2004). The questionnaire consists of 41 questions, 35 of which address internal and external factors that could be impacting the child’s sleep and inquires about child self regulation practices and caregiver support for sleep. Additionally, the final six questions are optional demographic questions. The Investigator hypothesizes that sleep disturbances in early childhood restrict a child’s self-regulatory skills and have the potential to negatively impact caregiver-child attachment on a long term basis. The data showed common themes of the data collected from 84 participants including transgenerational values in caregiving, child use and expression of self-regulation, and the two main demographics impacted in this study were families experiencing frequent wakings and minimal sleep (less than four hours) achieved each night