Bedtime Rituals and Routines of Turkish Children and Perceptions of Their Mothers

Abstract

Objective The aim of this study is to determine the mother’s perceptions of sleeping problems and sleeping behaviors of their children. Materials and Methods This descriptive study was conducted with 294 mothers with children from birth to 2 years of age. Questionnaires on socio-demographic information, behaviors to put a child into the sleep and to determine maternal sleeping habits were applied to mothers. Results It was determined that 33% of the children enrolled in the study had sleep problems; 70.1% of the mothers considered this problem to be moderate, and 16.5% of the mothers considered the problem to be serious. Methods that the mothers used most frequently to put their children to sleep were rocking on legs (49.7%), feeding/breastfeeding (44.6%) and singing a lullaby/song (28.2%). Conclusion The results of this study show that many children have sleeping problems and the mothers use various methods to put their children to sleep. These results can be useful for increasing the awareness of pediatric health professionals when evaluating a child’s sleeping behavior and sleeping habits and coping with children’s sleeping problems.

Keywords

• Mother
• child
• bedtime
• rituals and routines
• perception