Photo: Steven Siewert
Babies are not missing out on cuddles if their mothers work - even full-time. They spend almost the same amount of time each day being held, read to, talked to, and cuddled as the babies of mothers who stay at home, according to a study that charts the typical day of Australian infants.
And babies who are breast-fed are cuddled and talked to more but sleep less and cry more than non-breast-fed babies.
The findings are from the Growing Up in Australia project, the biggest continuing study of Australian families. As part of the study, the parents of 3000 babies aged three months to 14 months kept diaries for two days on how their babies spent their time.
Jennifer Baxter, a research fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, and co-author of the study, said the findings indicated the babies of working mothers did not miss out on activities that were considered beneficial - especially being hugged or cuddled and being read to or talked to.
"Working mothers might spend less time with their babies, but fathers are making up for it and grandparents and carers are doing the cuddling, too," she said.
Dr Baxter said the study showed significant differences in how breast-fed babies spent their day compared with non-breast-fed babies.
They were cuddled for 32 minutes more a day, and read to, talked to or sung to for 27 minutes longer than non-breast-fed babies. They were also more likely than non-breast fed babies to have spent time looking at books or puzzles. But breast-fed babies slept 40 minutes less and cried a little more.
Dr Baxter said the extra cuddling and nurturing activities the breast-fed babies received might help explain other research that showed better cognitive and behavioural outcomes for children who had been breast-fed.
A Sydney mother, Lisa Lieber, is breast-feeding her one-year-old son, Alfie, and has breast-fed her other three children with "varying success". She also works as a casual teacher at several adult educational institutions.
"I'm not surprised that babies with mothers at home don't end up getting any extra cuddles," she said. "There's so much other stuff the women have to do - looking after other children, cooking - Grandparents and dads usually don't have responsibility for other chores. They can just sing and play with the children."
The research paper, "Breastfeeding and Infants' Time Use", co-authored by Julie Smith, of the Australian National University's Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health, showed on average babies were held or cuddled just over two hours a day and were read to, talked to, or sung to for 88 minutes.
Babies of full-time employed mothers - who were only 7 per cent of the sample - spent 83 minutes less a day with their mothers than babies of mothers who were not employed. But the women's husbands spent 81 minute more alone with their babies than other fathers.
As well the babies spent 43 minutes more a day with grandparents or other relatives.
"If there's any downside in the mother not being there, there has to be some upside in the father being there more," Dr Baxter said.
