Parental Revenge Bedtime Procrastination and Parent–Child Feeding Interactions in Early Childhood: A Theory-Driven Perspective on an Unstudied Pathway

Bedtime procrastination is defined as delaying sleep despite having no external obstacles. It is a well-established marker of impaired self-regulation and contributes to sleep loss, daytime fatigue, and emotional dysregulation. A parental variant of this behavior is termed parental revenge bedtime procrastination (RBP). This behavior is conceptualized as an autonomy-motivated subtype in which caregivers reclaim personal time at night to compensate for daytime caregiving demands. However, parental RBP has received almost no direct empirical attention, particularly regarding its impact on parent–child interaction quality. Concurrently, distinct literatures on parental technoference, sensitivity, and responsive feeding converge on a shared theme. A sleep-deprived, depleted, and phone-absorbed parent may struggle to read and respond to a young child’s hunger and satiety cues during meals. Grounding these relational dynamics in classical infant mental health frameworks highlights the developmental stakes of impaired mealtime reciprocity. Key theoretical foundations include Daniel Stern’s theory of affective attunement, Infant Research paradigms by Beebe and Tronick, contemporary neurocognitive models, and Irene Chatoor’s clinical classification of feeding disorders. To our knowledge, no study has tested this direct chain in children aged 0–3 years. This perspective article maps existing evidence onto a conceptual model linking parental RBP to feeding interaction quality. It identifies empirically supported segments versus inferential links, proposes a concrete research agenda, outlines potential clinical implications, and advocates for the systematic investigation of this pathway.