Bedtime Procrastination and Parental Burnout Among Mothers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25217/002026929900Keywords:
Bedtime procrastination, parental burnout, psychological stress, mental health, sleep qualityAbstract
Motherhood involves multiple childcare and family responsibilities that may limit opportunities for personal time and rest. Bedtime procrastination may provide mothers with time for personal activities but may also be associated with parental burnout. However, the relationship between bedtime procrastination and parental burnout among mothers remains insufficiently explored. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between bedtime procrastination and parental burnout among mothers and to examine differences in these variables according to selected demographic characteristics. A descriptive correlational design was employed with a sample of 202 mothers from Irbid, Jordan. Data were collected using the Bedtime Procrastination Reasons Scale and the Parental Burnout Assessment. Pearson’s correlation coefficient and mean comparison procedures were used to examine the relationships and differences according to the study variables. Bedtime procrastination and parental burnout were both at moderate levels. A statistically significant positive correlation was found between bedtime procrastination and parental burnout. Statistically significant differences in bedtime procrastination were found according to age, presence of an infant, and income level, while no significant differences were found according to educational level, number of children, or employment status. Parental burnout also differed significantly according to age, presence of an infant, and income level, with mothers of infants reporting higher levels of parental burnout. The findings indicate an association between bedtime procrastination and parental burnout among mothers. They also highlight the relevance of considering bedtime behavior and parental burnout together when examining mothers’ psychological and behavioral experiences..
References
Abdel Moneim, A. A. (2024). Self-perceived stigma and its relationship to sleep disorders among mothers of children with Down syndrome. Journal of Psychological Studies, 34(2). https://doi.org/10.21608/psj.2024.257141.1083
Bogdán, P. M., Varga, K., Tóth, L., Gróf, K., & Pakai, A. (2025). Parental Burnout: A Progressive Condition Potentially Compromising Family Well-Being—A Narrative Review. In Healthcare, l. 13, (13), 1603-1617. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare13131603
Boubakeria, R., and Abib, H. (2024). Parental burnout and its relationship to some variables: A field study among a sample of mothers in the state of Tamanrasset. Journal of Psychological Studies, 14(1), 85–101. https://doi.org/10.37487/0840-014-001-006
Ciciolla, L., & Luthar, S. S. (2019). Invisible household labor and ramifications for adjustment: Mothers as captains of households. Sex Roles, 81, 467–486.
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Deval, S., & Sharma, M. L. (2026). Bed Time Procrastination and Maternal Mental Health in New Mothers: The Mediating Role of Bedtime Procrastination Between Sleep Quality and Psychological Distress. Journal of Daoist Studies, 19(S1), 1144-1157. https://journalofdaoiststudies.org/index.php/journal/article/view/208
Hill, V. M., Rebar, A. L., Ferguson, S. A., Shriane, A. E., & Vincent, G. E. (2022). Go to bed! A systematic review and meta-analysis of bedtime procrastination correlates and sleep outcomes. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 66, 101697. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2022.101697
Hormozi, B. K., Khosravi, Z., & Sabzi, N. (2022). Parental burnout and sleep problems in Iranian mothers of primary school‐aged children: Exploring the mediation effect of emotional schemas. Brain and Behavior, 12(8), e2688. https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.2688
Insana, S. P., & Montgomery-Downs, H. E. (2013). Sleep and sleepiness among first-time postpartum parents: A field- and laboratory-based multimethod assessment. Sleep, 36(12), 1795–1803.
Khou, M. A., Sahrani, R., & Marella, B. (2024). Gambaran revenge bedtime procrastination pada mahasiswa. Provitae: Jurnal Psikologi Pendidikan, 17(1), 39-51. https://doi.org/10.24912/provitae.v17i1.29995
Kim, C. N., & Kerr, M. L. (2024). Different patterns of endorsement of intensive mothering beliefs: Associations with parenting guilt and parental burnout. Journal of Family Psychology, 38(7), 1098–1107. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0001241
Kroese, F. M., De Ridder, D. T. D., Evers, C., & Adriaanse, M. A. (2014). Bedtime procrastination: Introducing a new area of procrastination. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 611.
Kroese, F. M., Evers, C., Adriaanse, M. A., & De Ridder, D. T. D. (2016). Bedtime procrastination: A self-regulation perspective on sleep insufficiency in the general population. Journal of Health Psychology, 21(5), 853–862.
Kutz, K. M. (2024). Maternal Burden: The Interplay of Parental Burnout, Insomnia, and the COVID-19 Pandemic Among First-Time Mothers (Doctoral dissertation, Antioch University).
Lee, Y., Suh, A., Lucchini, M., Barnett, N., & Thakur, S. (2025, May). Predictors of Parental Bedtime Procrastination Using Machine Learning. In Sleep , 48, A222-A222.
Lollies, F., Schnatschmidt, M., Schlarb, A. A., & Genuneit, J. (2022). Child sleep problems affect mothers and fathers differently: how infant and young child sleep affects paternal and maternal sleep quality, emotion regulation, and sleep-related cognitions. Nature and science of sleep, 137-152. https://doi.org/10.2147/NSS.S329503
Mikolajczak, M., Brianda, M. E., Avalosse, H., & Roskam, I. (2018). Consequences of parental burnout: Its specific effect on child neglect and violence. Child Abuse & Neglect, 80, 134–145.
Mikolajczak, M., Gross, J. J., & Roskam, I. (2019). Parental burnout: What is it, and why does it matter? Clinical Psychological Science, 7(6), 1319–1329.
Nauts, S., Kamphorst, B. A., Stut, W., De Ridder, D. T. D., & Anderson, J. H. (2019). The explanations people give for going to bed late: A qualitative study of the varieties of bedtime procrastination. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 17(6), 753–762. https://doi.org/10.1080/15402002.2018.1491850
Oliveira, A., Pereira, B., Aguiar, C., Rosário, P., & Magalhães, P. (2025). Assessing motives for delaying bedtime: Development and psychometric properties of the reasons for bedtime procrastination scale. Psicothema, 37(1), 91–99. https://doi.org/10.70478/psicothema.2025.37.10
Pu, Z., Ng, A. S., Suh, S., Chee, M. W., & Massar, S. A. (2025). Failing to plan: Bedtime planning, bedtime procrastination, and objective sleep in university students. Sleep Medicine, 132, 106556. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2025.106556
Ren, X., Cai, Y., Wang, J., & Chen, O. (2024). A systematic review of parental burnout and related factors among parents. BMC public health, 24(1), 376. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-17829-y
Roskam, I., Brianda, M.-E., & Mikolajczak, M. (2018). A step forward in the conceptualization and measurement of parental burnout: The Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA). Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article 758. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00758
Sarvaran, K., Abbasalizadeh, F., Alaei, M., & Fathnezhad-Kazemi, A. (2024). Prevalence of sleep disorders and the effect of sleep health education on sleep quality in pregnant women with sleep disorders. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 18(3), 435-444. https://doi.org/10.1177/15598276231178746
Shipman-Lacewell, J., Ward, L., James, B., Soura, S., Thomas, M., Goodridge, N., & Johnson, D. (2026). 0129 Perceived Stress and Revenge Bedtime Procrastination in Black Adults. SLEEP, 49, A56-A56. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsag091.0130
Shweikh, H. A. M. (2025). Maternal burnout in light of some psychological variables. University of Sharjah Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 22(3), 374–407. https://doi.org/10.36394/jhss/22/3/22
Sultan, P., Guo, N., Kawai, M., Barwick, F. H., Carvalho, B., Mackey, S., ... & Butwick, A. J. (2023). Prevalence and predictors for postpartum sleep disorders: a nationwide analysis. The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, 36(1), 2170749. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767058.2023.2170749
Tracchegiani, J., & Carone, N. (2025). Parental burnout, personality, and parenting alliance in first-time mothers and fathers during the perinatal period. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/02646838.2025.2451379.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Abdelrahim Fathy Ismail, Rawan Abdul Mahdi Neyef Al-Saliti, Noor Mohammad Bani Fayyad, Saja Hassan Malkawi, Alaaeldin Ahmed Hamid, Ahmed Zakaria Hegazy

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.



