Context Matters: Household Chaos, Coparenting Quality and Sleep and Eating Regulation in Infancy
Research Poster Social & Behavioral Sciences 2025 Graduate ExhibitionPresentation by Adelaide Klutse
Exhibition Number 78
Abstract
Early regulatory processes are known to independently and in combination with ecological factors influence the level and trajectory of early socio-emotional and cognitive outcomes (Mindell et al., 2017). Two of such factors are quality of coparenting and household chaos. Few studies address the early influences of these ecological factors on the trajectories of development in the domains of eating and sleeping regulation. In a study of 167 families, using separate models and controlling for socio-economic risk and gender, multi-level analyses were conducted to assess the relationship between coparenting relationship quality and eating and sleep dysregulation across the second year and whether the association was stronger for infants from less chaotic (better organized) households. Results revealed that coparenting quality directly predicted healthier trajectories of eating and sleep regulation across the second year of life, and household chaos directly predicted poorer trajectories of sleep regulation but not eating regulation. Of particular note was that household chaos significantly moderated the links between coparenting relationship quality and eating and sleep regulation, such that coparenting predicted better infant sleep and eating regulation only when levels of household chaos were low. Results demonstrated the complex influences of infants’ caregiving ecology on early-developing, pre-conscious regulatory processes in the second year. More broadly, results indicated that distal aspects of the caregiving environment can impact early-developing, basic regulatory processes such as eating and sleep regulation across the second year.
Importance
Our findings are an important contribution to the field as they show how household chaos and coparenting relationship quality influence the development of eating and sleep regulation across the second year. Also, considering that an infant’s ability to regulate biological processes like eating and sleep impacts later life outcomes, our findings are useful in informing the content of family intervention materials. Specifically, we anticipate that these findings will influence the inclusion of modules on strategies to reduce levels of household chaos iand promote coparenting quality, as a way of dousing the effect of low relational and environmental quality on the development of the child.