The overall conclusions and implications for this study were that their model of Infant night waking leading to parent night waking to parent sleep quality to depressive symptoms to co-parenting difficulties was confirmed at one and three months. This may seem like common sense but many parents do not plan for how they will handle the sleep issues with their newborn. This study shows that both parents must work actively together to aid in the distress that night waking in their newborn can cause.
Parents need to be knowledgeable and work together to aid their baby in sleep patterns. If not, a chronic condition could arise which would then in turn lead to co-parenting difficulties as seen in McDaniel and Teti’s model. This co-parenting difficulty then puts stress on the marriage with the potential to lead to another whole host of problems. Newborn sleep is very different from adult sleep and should be educated as such.
A plan should be in place so that parents know what their nighttime duties will be before the baby is born. One issue that was not addressed in this study was the issue of how the baby is fed. A question that should be addressed is breastfeeding as the mother is usually the one totally responsible for this unless there is pumped breast milk.
The main point of this study is that parents must plan ahead, be educated about what they will go through and work together to get through the sleep disruption as smoothly as possible. Acknowledgment that infant night waking can lead to co-parenting problems, allows parents to discuss a co-parenting plan to adjust to the infant's sleep pattern. If the infant then experiences sleep issues as they continue to grow the parents have a plan in place and an understanding of how to proceed.
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