The feasibility of remote measurement of infant sleep and motor development

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic shut-down of in-person research laboratories, remote data collection became mainstream in developmental psychology research. The aim of this study was to test the feasibility of two remote data collection methods for studying sleep and motor development in infancy and the relationship between the two. We asked 1371 parents of infants aged 4–17 months who used the Nanit baby monitor to take the online Survey of Well-being of Young Children (SWYC) about their infants' motor experience. Nanit uses auto-videosomnography and computer vision algorithms to calculate and report summary statistics of infants' sleep. Nanit replicated all expected developmental trends in sleep, while the SWYC only replicated some, appearing to underestimate infants at the transition between motor milestones. However, we replicated some well-established findings regarding the relationship between sleep and motor development using both measures, suggesting that both Nanit and the SWYC can feasibly be used for remote data collection, especially if some modifications were made to how researchers explained using the SWYC to caregivers. Researchers should consider alternatives to traditional research methods not only when in-person participation is difficult or impossible, but also when large samples are needed and/or simple measurement tools are sufficient.