Co-Sleeping with a pet: exploring the impact on youth sleep

Despite a rise in pet ownership and adult literature indicating pet co-sleeping may lead to disrupted sleep, limited research has evaluated the impact of youth co-sleeping with an animal. This study evaluated whether a pet in the bedroom affects youth sleep.

175 families completed measures of screen time, sleep problems, and parental sleep knowledge. Youth (M age = 9.51; 53.1% male) wore an ActiGraph and completed a sleep diary for 2 consecutive weeks. For youth who owned a pet dog, the dog wore an ActiGraph for the same 2 weeks. Youth were separated into 3 groups: those who slept with a pet on the bed, those with a pet in the room but not on the bed, and those with no pet in the bedroom.

Results suggest that youth with a pet on the bed have a shorter sleep duration, lower efficiency, and longer sleep onset latency than youth without a pet in the bedroom. A pet on the bed explained unique variance in sleep efficiency, duration, and latency when accounting for factors previously shown to impact youth sleep. Awakenings and self-reported sleep problems did not differ between groups. In dyadic analyses (n = 43), dog movement 1 min prior predicted child movement at night.

Results suggest that having a pet on the bed is associated with more restless and shorter sleep. Though results should be replicated, clinicians should begin assessing pet sleeping location when addressing sleep concerns and provide families with information about the potential impact of pets on sleep.