Mothers and fathers did not differ on subjectively measured sleep quality, sleepiness, or fatigue however, mothers had worse neurobehavioral performance than fathers. Fathers had greater objectively measured sleepiness than mothers. Mothers obtained more sleep compared to fathers, but mothers’ sleep was more disturbed by awakenings. The assessment week was followed by an objective laboratory based test of sleepiness.
Within their natural environment, participants completed one week of wrist actigraphy monitoring, along with multi-day self-administered sleepiness, fatigue, and neurobehavioral performance measures. Participants were 21 first-time postpartum mother-father dyads ( N=42) and seven childless control dyads ( N=14). The study aim was to compare sleep, sleepiness, fatigue, and neurobehavioral performance among first-time mothers and fathers during their early postpartum period.