Overnight care patterns following parental separation: associations with emotion regulation in infants and young children

Children living in a shared-time parenting arrangement following separation (also known as joint physicalcustody or dual residence) spend equal or near-equal amounts of day and night time with each parent. Little data existregarding developmental sequelae of such arrangements for infants. The current study examined a theoretically drivenquestion: Are there associations between quantum of overnight stays away from a primary resident parent and the infant’ssettledness, or emotion regulation with that parent? Nationally representative parent report data from the LongitudinalStudy of Australian Children (LSAC) were used. Three age bands were studied and three levels of overnight care contrasted.When parenting style, parental confl ict and socio-economic factors were controlled for, greater number of shared overnightstays for the 0–1 year old and the 2–3 year old groups predicted some less settled and poorly regulated behaviours, butnone for the 4–5 year old group. Limits of these data are discussed, including application to the individual case. Findingssuggest emotional regulation within the primary infant–parent relationship is one useful index of infant adjustment toparenting time arrangements