Do family members sleep alike? Sleep features among mothers, fathers, and adolescents

• Published date: 01 October 2023
• Author: Raija‐Leena Punamäki,Marjo Flykt,Jallu Lindblom,Aila Tiitinen,Piia Poikkeus,Mervi Vänskä
• Date: 01 October 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12759

RESEARCH

Do family members sleep alike? Sleep features among

mothers, fathers, and adolescents

Raija-Leena Punamäki

1

|Marjo Flykt

1,2

|Jallu Lindblom

1,4

|

Aila Tiitinen

3

|Piia Poikkeus

3

|Mervi Vänskä

1

1

Faculty of Social Sciences/Psychology,

Tampere University, Tampere, Finland

2

Department of Psychology and Logopedics,

University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

3

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology,

University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

4

Department of Psychology and Speech

Language Pathologies, University of Turku,

Turku, Finland

Correspondence Raija-Leena Punamäki,

Faculty of Social Sciences/Psychology,

FIN-33014 Tampere University,

Tampere, Finland.

Email: raija-leena.punamaki-gitai@tuni.fi

Funding information

This study is a part of the Miracles of

Development research project (https://projects.

tuni.fi/kehi/) granted by the Academy of

Finland (#308 988 and #323845) and was also

supported by the Juho Vainio Foundation.

Abstract

Objective: To identify within-family groups according to

sleep schedule, problems, and impact, reflecting similari-

ties or differences in adolescents, mothers, and fathers and

to examine how mental health and attachments associate

with these triadic sleep groups.

Background: Family relationships shape sleeping, but

within-family research in adolescence is scarce.

Method: Adolescents (17–18years; 60% girls; n=438),

mothers (n=448), and fathers (n=358) filled in the Pitts-

burgh Sleep Quality Index. The adolescents reported

mental health problems by the Behavior Assessment Sys-

tem and the parents by the General Health Questionnaire.

All reported attachments by the Experiences in Close

Relationships.

Results: Cluster analysis identified four triadic sleep

groups: “Good family sleep”(47%), “Poor adolescent and

maternal sleep”(29%), “Poor paternal sleep”(16%), and

“Poor family sleep”(8%). Adolescents in the “Poor family

sleep”group had more mental health problems than they

did in other groups, and fathers in the “Poor paternal

sleep”group showed higher psychiatric symptoms than in

the “Good family sleep”or “Poor adolescent and maternal

sleep”groups. Adolescents in the “Poor family sleep”

group reported higher insecure–anxious attachments than

they did in other groups, and fathers reported higher

insecure–avoidant and insecure–anxious attachments in

the “Poor paternal sleep”than they did in other groups.

Author Note: Raija-Leena Punamäki https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4385-3073 Marjo Flykt https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0874-4357 Jallu

Lindblom https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4636-1226 Aila Tiitinen https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3088-5594 Mervi Vänskä https://orcid.org/

0000-0002-7412-5012

Received: 19 September 2021Revised: 13 June 2022Accepted: 10 July 2022

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12759

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits

use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or

adaptations are made.

© 2022 The Authors. Family Relations published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2023;72:2103–2122. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 2103

Conclusion: A family systems approach provides new

insight into sleep, mental health, and attachments.

Implications: Interventions to improve sleep quality should

consider family dynamics that may underlie potential sleep

problems, and sleep as a public health issue can benefit from

knowledge about family mental health and attachments.

KEYWORDS

adolescence, attachment, family systems, mental health, sleep quality

Do parents and their children share similar sleep features, and if so, why? From the perspec-

tive of family systems theories, the response would be affirmative and emphasize inter-

dependency among family members, as their well-being, stress, and emotional expressions

reciprocally influence how each functions in multiple ways (Bowen, 1990; Cox &

Paley, 1997), including in terms of sleep schedules and sleep problems (El-Sheikh &

Kelly, 2017; Peltz et al., 2016). Attachment theory would particularly emphasize mutuality of

early experiences of emotional sharing between parents and children and the essential role

that attachment security plays in shaping children’s psychophysiological–hormonal regula-

tion, which also pertains to sleep patterns and stabilization of the circadian and homeostatic

rhythm (Adams et al., 2014). Sleep research would suggest similarities in family members’

sleep features because sleep disorders in adults (hypersomnia, insomnia, and parasomnia) and

children (sleepwalking, sleep paralysis, and night terror) run in families and may co-occur

among monozygotic twins (Crocker & Sehgal, 2010). Family members also resemble each

other in their sleep architecture in terms of the duration and proportion of sleep stages (1–2

light waves and 3–4 slow waves in non–rapid eye movement and rapid eye movement sleep),

as well as in chronotypes of diurnal preferences for early morning “larks”or late evening

“owls”(Sehgal & Mignot, 2011).

According to the ecological theory of children’s sleep (El-Sheikh & Sadeh, 2015), parents’and

children’s problems of initiating and maintaining sleep and sleep schedules (sleep duration,

eveningness and morningness) are closely intertwined and reciprocally affect the well-being of all

family members. There is ample evidence to confirm concordance between infants’and toddlers’

sleep problems, unstable circadian rhythm, and parental (especially maternal) poor sleep quality

(Meltzer & Montgomery-Downs, 2011; Peltz et al., 2016). In adolescence, multiple significant

developments occur, especially in sleep schedules, characterized by delayed circadian rhythm (high

eveningness and morningness), increased sleep homeostasis pressure, decline in slow-wave sleep,

and more negative impact of poor sleep on daytime functioning (Carskadon, 2011;Crowley

et al., 2018). Therefore, it is important to know how adolescents’and their parents’sleep features

intertwine and embed, which is the contribution of the current study.

Knowledge about family members’shared sleep features is based on correlations and sepa-

rate comparisons—for example, between sleep duration, waking up, and chronotypes

(Bajoghli et al., 2013;Fulignietal.,2015; Kouros & El-Sheikh, 2017). However, sleeping is

embedded in the family context, involving reciprocal interactions of complex relational sub-

systems (e.g., marital, parental, and siblingship) aiming at homeostasis and adaption to multi-

ple external and internal demands (El-Sheikh & Sadeh, 2015). Therefore, to fully comprehend

family members’mutual sleep dynamics, the current study applies the family systems

approach (Bowen, 1990;Cox&Paley,1997) to seek unique within-family sleep types by iden-

tifying triadic sleep groups based on similarities and differences among adolescents’, mothers’,

and fathers’sleep features. The ecological theory of children’s sleep underscores how mental

2104 FAMILY RELATIONS