Maternal Self-Efficacy as a Moderator in the Relationship between Infant/Toddler Sleep and Maternal Mental Health

This study investigates the moderating effects of maternal self-efficacy on the association between infant sleep quality and various aspects of maternal mental and emotional health.

Five hundred forty-four mothers (M age = 32.27, SD = 4.29) of infants and toddlers aged 0 to 36 months completed a combination of self-report and parent-report measures: the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire-Revised (BISQ-R) for infant sleep quality, the Maternal Self-Efficacy Scale (MSES), the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), and the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS).

Mothers with higher self-efficacy reported better well-being across all domains compared to those with lower self-efficacy. Furthermore, maternal self-efficacy scores were found to moderate the relationship between infant sleep and maternal well-being. While poor infant sleep quality was associated with lower well-being scores across all mothers, the positive association between good infant sleep quality and well-being was more pronounced among mothers with higher self-efficacy scores.

Our findings highlight the moderating role of maternal self-efficacy in the relationship between maternal well-being and infant/toddler sleep. These results suggest that interventions for enhancing maternal self-efficacy may offer a promising avenue for improving maternal well-being, potentially in conjunction with behavioral interventions targeting child sleep problems.