The New Parent Sleep Experience: sensitivity to infant signalling across genders and culture
Christine Parsons has received a Carlsberg Foundation Young Researcher Fellowship for a new project
Summary
Having a baby brings drastic reductions in adult sleep. The majority of our knowledge of early parenting and its effects on sleep, are derived from studies of mothers, with fathers either overlooked or under-emphasized. As fathers constitute 50 per cent of parents, and have become increasingly involved in childcare, this project will trace how men and women respond to infant signalling and the impact on sleep. This work will comprise a series of studies using complementary methods, from lab-based neural recordings of sleep, to large scale app-based assessments of real-world behaviour. The overarching aim is to understand the fundamental responses that govern early parenting and sleep quality, how these differ in fathers and mothers, and across cultures with divergent levels of work-related support for parents.
The project will be carried out in 2020-2023. Read more here.
Contact
Christine Parsons, Assosicate Professor
