Introduction

the COVID-19 pandemic has brought changes in routines, use of time, behaviors, social relationships and concerns that can compromise children’s sleep, and studies on the subject are essential.

Objective

to evaluate the sleep habits of preschool children after the COVID-19 lockdown in Brazil.

Methods

this is a cross-sectional study nested in a cohort of live births to assess growth and development up to 1,000 days of age. For this study, data were collected from children at 4 years of age related to biological profile, health status, maternal care, screen time and physical activity, and behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. The mean scores of the children’s sleep habits (bedtime routine, rhythmicity and affective separation) were analyzed according to the children’s characteristics using the Student’s t-test.

Results

sleep routine was the most impaired sleep habit, with lower averages in cases of hospitalization (p = 0.047), mother’s difficulty in caring for the child (p = 0.003) and great concern about COVID-19 during the pandemic (p = 0.003); followed by rhythmicity, which was also worse in the previous situations. In addition, children with more than 60 minutes of recreational screen time (p = 0.002) and without a mask-wearing routine during the pandemic (p = 0.003) had lower average bedtime routines. Health problems at birth (p = 0.001), hospitalization (p = 0.000), special health needs (p = 0.025) and mother’s difficulty in providing care (p = 0.037) negatively interfered with affective separation.

Conclusion

children with health problems, excessive screen time and concern about COVID-19 during the pandemic, as well as the difficulty of maternal care, influenced children’s sleep habits.

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