Research Shows…

Posted by admin on February 25, 2009

I just read a very interesting article from TIME magazine that had some very interesting research quoted on the effects of parental behavior on their infant’s / toddler’s sleep habits.

Basically it seems that many sleep problems in infants and toddlers are , and this might hurt, related to ” ‘maladaptive’ parental habits”.

So what were some of these bad habits on the part of parents?

A couple mentioned in the very beginning of the article were mom / dad staying with baby until he / she fell asleep and mom / dad giving food to a child when they would awaken during the night.

The study mentioned included a panel of 987 parents (I’m assuming that there were less than 987 children / not all single parents) with children 5 months of age at the beginning of the study.

It pointed out that while some responses were appropriate in the first few months of a childs life that most of these responses were unhealthy when continued past those few months.

Many of the habits that parents got into actually seemed to exacerbate the sleep difficulties for the future.

The article actually presented what would appear to be a very balanced view explaining that while you wouldn’t want to allow a child to cry (“wail”) endlessly you also would want to avoid “co-sleeping” or joining the child in a common bed.

What was the alternate solution?

Quoted directly from the article:

” ‘It might be appropriate to be present in the room, comforting the child for a short time,’ Simard says. But it’s most important ‘to let the child develop a capacity to comfort himself on his own.’ “

If you’d really like to get the full information from the article I suggest giving it a read.

You can find this invaluable article at Time Magazine’s website and it is called “How Not to Get Baby to Sleep”