PURPOSE: To describe the sleeping arrangements of parents and twins in their home during the first 3 months following discharge from the hospital. Preliminary data suggest that a high percentage of twins share their sleeping space, a practice thought to be associated with an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome.
SUBJECTS: Twenty-seven families who delivered twins greater than 33 weeks' gestation were recruited from 3 Midwestern hospitals. One family withdrew from the study after Time 1.
DESIGN: Secondary analysis of preliminary data obtained during an ongoing descriptive correlational study of sleep patterns in parents of twins.
METHODS: Data were collected via interview/survey format at 3 different time points during the first 4 months of the twin's life. Time 1 data was collected when the twins reached 40 weeks postmenstrual age. The second and third data collection points occurred at 8 weeks and 12 weeks from the date of hospital discharge of the last twin.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: In structured interviews at each data point, mothers were asked whether parents and/or twins slept in the same room, separate rooms, or any combination of twin(s) with an adult in the same or separate rooms. Mothers also were asked if twins slept in the same crib or separate cribs.
PRINCIPAL RESULTS: Mothers were 74.1% white, non-Hispanic and 25.9% African American. Three mothers did not reside with the babies' fathers. The mean twin birth gestation was 36.5 weeks (SD = 1.0), age at Time 1 was 25.7 days (SD = 8.4), 63.3 days (SD = 7.6) at Time 2, and 88.7 days (SD = 9.8) at Time 3. Room sharing of one or both parents with their twins occurred in 74.1% of families at Time 1 (n = 27), decreased to 61.5 % of families at Time 2 (n = 26), and to 57.7% of families at Time 3 (n = 26). Crib sharing between twins decreased over time from 70.4% at Time 1, to 61.5% at Time 2, to 53.8% at Time 3.
CONCLUSIONS: Both room sharing and crib sharing decreased over the first four months of the twins' life. While the high level of room sharing in families with twins is encouraging as a practice associated with a decreased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), crib sharing increases the risk for SIDS. Additional research is needed to evaluate parents' reasons for various sleeping arrangements and to develop interventions that promote safe infant sleeping practices for families with multiple infants.