MOTHERS who shout or smack are more likely to have toddlers with sleep difficulties, but researchers do not know if the aggressive parenting style is a cause or effect of the problems.
A pediatrician from Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital has crunched data from 4600 families to analyse whether the parenting method has any effect on sleep behaviour of children between the ages of one and three.
Harriet Hiscock found children are nearly twice as likely to have sleep problems that persist through the toddler years if their mother's parenting style is "hostile" rather than "warm".
"Hostile" was characterised by yelling or physical punishment such as smacking.
But her research has opened a chicken-and-egg debate because it is not clear whether the sleep problems are caused by the mothers' parenting, or if the frazzled mothers have resorted to shouting at their sleep-deprived, cranky children.
"It's always a cause-and-effect argument and you can't really conclude from this which one occurs first," Dr Hiscock said.
She found the biggest predictor of persistent sleep problems was a child's health. Babies and toddlers with chronic health problems such as asthma or autism were more than three times more likely to suffer sleep problems than healthy children.
The data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children found some good news: 75% of children had no sleep problems at either of the two reporting times, at ages one and three.
Two-thirds of sleeping problems reported at age one were resolved by the second study, but about one in 20 of the children had sleep problems that persisted over the years.
About 10% of those who were sleeping beauties at the first point developed a sleep problem by the time they were three.
Mothers' parenting style was not a big factor in sleep problems at the age of one, but became an issue by the second study.
Fathers' parenting style was not as significant, but emerged as a factor for children who developed sleep disorders when they were older toddlers.
"Again, that might be reflecting that kids who do have a sleep problem, the parents become hostile rather than the parenting style affecting the sleep," Dr Hiscock said.
Families in financial stress were also more likely to have a child with sleep problems, as were families in which the mother suffered a serious mental illness.
Dr Hiscock said parents should ask for help from doctors or family support services if their babies or toddlers were not sleeping well and the family was suffering effects of sleep deprivation.
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/03/30/1206850707225.html
