Toddlers who sleep in the same room with their parents, experience less stress.
Dutch scientists conducted an experiment with the participation of 163 mothers. The intent of the researchers, all women were asked to keep a diary for the first 2 months after birth of their child. Each day, they recorded where and for how long their newborns were sleeping. As it turned out, about a quarter of the infants slept in a separate room and about 40% of sleep always with their parents. The remaining children sometimes slept in his room and sometimes in the parents ‘ room.
“We measured the level of cortisol in the saliva of each child when they get in a stressful situation, including while bathing in the tub. Cortisol is a hormone released during times of stress. We found that children who slept separately from their parents, worried, 40% more stress when they were put in the bath than who slept in the room of the parents,” said one of the study’s authors.
One possible explanation for this phenomenon may be the fact that the parents become a kind of external regulator of stress for the child. When a child sleeps in the parents room, the adults can very quickly react to the anxiety and discomfort of his child. A large amount of attention can reduce the stress of the child.
“Parents react to the slightest signals of the child’s anxiety, if he sleeps in the same room with them than when he is asleep in the other room. In the latter case, parents can intervene when it appears “basic” signals such as loud crying. Infants who sleep in a separate room, therefore less use of their parents as individuals, capable of managing stress,” – said the scientist. According to him this effect may persist for a day during activities such as swimming in the bathtub.
The researcher stresses the importance of learning to experience stress for a child. “It is normal when infants react to the environment, and their cortisol levels increased or decreased. This becomes a problem only in the case when children experience chronic stress and calm down slowly, which can damage their health and disrupt the ability to manage stressful situations,” – said the scientist.
