Bedtime Rituals and Their Relationship to Childhood Sleep Disturbance

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This study reopens the construct of a bedtime ritual using an ethnographic approach. The only previous descriptive work on the bedtime ritual, that of Albert and colleagues, consists of 5 families. This study expands the sample size to 16. The expanded sample size provides an opportunityfor greater exploration of diversity of the ritual and also greater disparity of sleep disturbance across participants. This study takes the descriptive analysis of the earlier study a step further by looking at recognizable differences in sleep disturbance and searching for a possible association with components of the bedtime rituaL Sleep distress indicators used in this study include reported nightmares, requests for water as a way in which to delay sleep, searching the roomfor "monsters," using night lights, protesting bedtime, and reports that the child cannot sleep.