孩子们的睡眠在父母的心里很重要

Waking up in the night. Waking early. Trouble falling asleep. Behavioral sleep problems like these affect 20 to 30 percent of young children.

在夜里醒来。早起。入睡困难。像这样的行为睡眠问题影响着20%到30%的儿童。

Much research has focused on the negative effects of children's behavioral sleep problems on their own well-being. But less attention has been paid to the effects of children's sleep problems on their parents.

许多研究都集中在儿童行为睡眠问题对他们自身健康的负面影响上。但是很少有人关注儿童睡眠问题对父母的影响。

Some studies have linked maternal depression to infant sleep problems, with depression scores decreasing after nurses have helped mothers improve infants' sleep.

一些研究将母亲的抑郁与婴儿的睡眠问题联系起来，护士帮助母亲改善婴儿的睡眠后，母亲的抑郁得分会下降。

Analyzing data from Canadian parents, our research team wanted to examine links between their thinking about sleep problems, mothers' and fathers' sleep quality, parental fatigue and depression in the context of infants' behavioral sleep problems.

通过分析来自加拿大父母的数据，我们的研究团队想要研究在婴儿行为睡眠问题的背景下，他们对睡眠问题的思考、父母的睡眠质量、父母的疲劳和抑郁之间的联系。

After an intervention for infants' sleep problems, we found that mothers' depression was associated with their sleep quality, fatigue and thoughts about infant sleep. (These thoughts included doubts about managing infant sleep, anger about infants' sleep and setting limits around infants' sleep). Fathers' depression was linked with their sleep quality, fatigue and thoughts about infant sleep (doubts about managing infant sleep, and setting limits around infants' sleep).

在对婴儿睡眠问题进行干预后，我们发现母亲的抑郁与她们的睡眠质量、疲劳和对婴儿睡眠的想法有关。(这些想法包括对婴儿睡眠管理的怀疑、对婴儿睡眠的愤怒以及对婴儿睡眠的限制)。父亲的抑郁与他们的睡眠质量、疲劳和对婴儿睡眠的想法(对婴儿睡眠管理的怀疑，以及对婴儿睡眠的限制)有关。

Sleep quality and fatigue are often viewed as symptoms of maternal depression. These findings are therefore important because paternal depression has been examined less often and parental thoughts about infant sleep have been largely overlooked.

睡眠质量和疲劳通常被认为是母亲抑郁的症状。因此，这些发现很重要，因为对父亲抑郁症的研究较少，父母对婴儿睡眠的想法在很大程度上被忽视了。

Parental thoughts about infant sleep influence whether they are comfortable with helping their children learn to soothe themselves back to sleep. These thoughts also influence whether parents feel they are neglecting their responsibilities if they are not consistently getting up at night to respond to their children.

父母对婴儿睡眠的想法会影响他们是否愿意帮助孩子学会让自己平静下来，重新入睡。这些想法也会影响到父母们，如果他们晚上不经常起床回应孩子，他们是否会觉得自己忽视了自己的责任。

Parents were excluded from participating in our study if they were diagnosed with or being treated for depression. Despite this, we found that, before the intervention, about half of the mothers and one-third of fathers reported high depressive symptoms. This decreased to 18 percent of mothers and about 15 percent of fathers following the intervention.

如果父母被诊断患有抑郁症或正在接受抑郁症治疗，他们将被排除在我们的研究之外。尽管如此，我们发现，在干预之前，大约一半的母亲和三分之一的父亲报告有高度抑郁症状。在接受干预后，这一比例降至18%，父亲的这一比例降至15%。

We also found that almost 30 percent of mothers and 19 percent of fathers reported depression scores that indicated clinically significant depression. After the intervention, that decreased to nine per cent of mothers and eight per cent of fathers.

我们还发现，几乎30%的母亲和19%的父亲报告的抑郁分数表明临床上有明显的抑郁。在干预后，母亲这一比例会下降到9%，父亲下降到8%。

These findings suggest that parents experienced depression directly associated with infants' sleep problems, which was improved by an intervention to reduce infants' problems.

这些发现表明，父母经历的抑郁症与婴儿的睡眠问题直接相关，通过干预减少婴儿的问题得到改善。