Peer-reviewed article
The age-dependent relationship between childcare attendance and children's daily napping frequency.
George Patterson Michael Normore, Peter Rankin, Karen Thorpe, Sally Staton ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This longitudinal study examined how attending childcare affects napping patterns in Australian children aged 1 to 4.5 years. The researchers found that on days children attended childcare, they napped about 4% less frequently overall. However, this relationship changed with age: younger children (before age 2.18 years) napped less on childcare days, while older children (after age 4.32 years) actually napped more. The findings suggest that nap-scheduling practices in childcare services may influence how children's sleep transitions from multiple naps to consolidated nighttime sleep.
Key points
- Childcare attendance was associated with a 4% within-child reduction in daily napping frequency overall
- The effect of childcare on napping was age-dependent, becoming negative (less napping) before age 2.18 years
- After approximately 4.32 years, the relationship reversed to become positive (more napping on childcare days)
- Standard nap-scheduling practices in childcare services may influence children's natural sleep development transition
- Longitudinal designs with frequent observations are necessary to detect within-child changes in sleep patterns
Limitations
The study was conducted only in Australia and may not reflect childcare practices or sleep patterns in other countries or cultures. The mechanisms explaining why the childcare-napping relationship reverses with age are not fully explored, limiting understanding of what drives these age-dependent effects.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The majority of children in developed economies attend childcare services during the first five years of life-a period coinciding with their developmental transition from regular napping to consolidated nighttime sleep. Whether childcare attendance affects this transition is not well understood. Previous studies have relied primarily on cross-sectional designs or widely spaced longitudinal observations, limiting their ability to distinguish childcare effects from differences between children and families. METHODS: To provide greater clarity, we draw on data from the Sleep Transitions and Regularities Study (STARs), a longitudinal study of sleep behaviours among Australian children aged 1-4.5 years (N = 188; 45.74% female). We fit hybrid mixed-effects models over multiply imputed data to estimate associations between daily childcare attendance and napping frequency at both the within- and between-child levels. We test interaction effects to determine whether these associations are moderated by child age. RESULTS: Attending childcare was associated with a 4% within-child reduction in same-day napping frequency (IRR = 0.96, 95% CI [0.93, 0.98]). This association was moderated by age (IRR = 1.07, 95% CI [1.03, 1.11]), such that the association was negative before children were ∼2.18 years and became positive after ∼4.32 years. CONCLUSION: These findings may reflect the impacts of nap-scheduling practices that are standard in many childcare services, and direct future attention to the effects of such practices on children's sleep health. Our results also underscore the importance of longitudinal designs for capturing within-child change and the effects of children's social environments on their sleep and development.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Daily childcare attendance
- Population
- Australian children aged 1-4.5 years (N=188, 45.74% female)
Key finding
Overall within-child reduction in napping on childcare days: 4% (IRR = 0.96, 95% CI [0.93, 0.98])