Observational study reveals no paternal advantage in emotional valence during infant care, highlighting sleep disruption as a major driver of reduced maternal well-being.
Key Points
To determine whether fathers experience higher emotional valence than mothers during infant care and evaluate how sleepiness influences daily parental well-being.
Assessed daily emotion and sleepiness data among mothers and fathers (N = 227) during parental leave.
Analyzed activity-valence associations and moderating effects of sleepiness using Bayesian multilevel beta regression models.
Found no credible evidence for a paternal advantage in emotional valence during childcare, with mothers reporting less positive valence during caregiving relative to other activities and fathers showing uncertain effects.
Observed that sleepiness was strongly associated with less positive valence across both parents, though mothers exhibited significantly steeper declines than fathers.
Identified gender-specific moderation by sleepiness, which attenuated negative associations with direct care for mothers and blunted positive associations with play for fathers.