As a single mom working part-time and attending graduate school part-time, I often plan my studying around my toddler sleeping. Some days, I get time to work during his nap. On others, I have to wait until bedtime. I chose this topic because his sleep schedule affects how I organize my day.
I created 4 weeks of fictional sleep records, covering 28 days. Each day has a nap duration in minutes and a bedtime. A value of 0 means no nap. Bedtime refers to when the child was put to bed, rather than when he fell asleep.
I made up every value for this assignment. These are not records of my son sleeping. He naps more and goes to bed earlier.
If you follow one row across the table, you will see a full week of sleep records. The column headings combine the day with the measurement, such as Monday Nap (min) and Monday Bedtime. Nap duration and bedtime repeat across all 7 days, leaving the daily observations spread across columns.
A tidy version would have one row per day, with separate columns for week, day, nap duration, and bedtime. I kept the wide layout for this discussion and left the tidying for Project 2.
The table has 4 rows and 15 columns.
| Week | Monday Nap (min) | Monday Bedtime | Tuesday Nap (min) | Tuesday Bedtime | Wednesday Nap (min) | Wednesday Bedtime | Thursday Nap (min) | Thursday Bedtime | Friday Nap (min) | Friday Bedtime | Saturday Nap (min) | Saturday Bedtime | Sunday Nap (min) | Sunday Bedtime |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 90 | 8:00 PM | 60 | 8:00 PM | 0 | 7:30 PM | 120 | 8:30 PM | 45 | 7:45 PM | 105 | 8:15 PM | 75 | 7:45 PM |
| 2 | 75 | 8:15 PM | 120 | 8:30 PM | 45 | 8:00 PM | 90 | 7:45 PM | 0 | 7:15 PM | 60 | 8:15 PM | 135 | 8:45 PM |
| 3 | 60 | 7:45 PM | 105 | 8:00 PM | 30 | 7:30 PM | 0 | 7:45 PM | 90 | 8:30 PM | 150 | 8:15 PM | 75 | 8:00 PM |
| 4 | 120 | 8:00 PM | 45 | 7:30 PM | 90 | 8:15 PM | 60 | 8:30 PM | 30 | 7:45 PM | 0 | 7:15 PM | 105 | 8:45 PM |
One possible analysis would examine whether longer naps are associated with later bedtimes. Another option would compare weekdays with weekends or look at how much bedtime varies across the 28 days. I have not decided whether to use this dataset for Project 2.
Since I invented the records, the results would describe this fictional example rather than establish a pattern in toddler sleep. I have not transformed or analyzed the data for this post.