A longitudinal study of infant 24-hour sleep: comparisons of sleep diary and accelerometer with different algorithms

Study objectives: To longitudinally compare sleep/wake identification and sleep parameter estimation from sleep diaries to accelerometers using different algorithms and epoch lengths in infants.

Methods: Mothers and other caregivers from the Nurture study (southeastern United States, 2013-2018) reported infants' 24-hour sleep in sleep diaries for 4 continuous days, while infants concurrently wore accelerometers on the left ankle at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months of age. We applied the Sadeh, Sadeh Infant, Cole, and Count-scaled algorithm to accelerometer data at 15 and 60 seconds epochs. For sleep/wake identification, we assessed agreement by calculating epoch-by-epoch percent agreement and kappas. We derived sleep parameters from sleep diaries and accelerometers separately and evaluated agreement using Bland-Altman plots. We estimated longitudinal trajectories of sleep parameters using marginal linear and Poisson regressions with generalized estimation equation estimation.

Results: Among the 477 infants, 66.2% were black and 49.5% were female. Agreement for sleep/wake identification varied by epoch length and algorithm. Relative to sleep diaries, we observed similar nighttime sleep offset, onset, and total nighttime sleep duration from accelerometers regardless of algorithm and epoch length. However, accelerometers consistently estimated about 1 less nap per day using the 15 seconds epoch, 70 and 50 minutes' shorter nap duration per day using the 15 and 60 seconds epoch, respectively; but accelerometers estimated over 3 times more wake after nighttime sleep onset (WASO) per night. Some consistent sleep parameter trajectories from 3 to 12 months from accelerometers and sleep diaries included fewer naps and WASOs, shorter total daytime sleep, longer total nighttime sleep, and higher nighttime sleep efficiency.

Conclusions: Although there is no perfect measure of sleep in infancy, our findings suggest that a combination of accelerometer and diary may be needed to adequately measure infant sleep.