Maternal insomnia and depressive symptoms and early childhood sleep among Arab and Jewish families in Israel

•We tested maternal insomnia, depression and child sleep in Arab and Jewish families.•Insomnia and depressive symptoms were higher in Arab than Jewish Israeli mothers.•More Arab than Jewish mothers met the clinical cutoff for insomnia and depression.•Significant positive triadic associations were found in both cultural groups.•Controlling for insomnia, links between depression and child sleep lost significance.