Descriptive figures for differences in parenting and infant night-time distress in the first three months of age

作者：St James Roberts Ian^*; Roberts Marion; Hovish Kimberly; Owen Charlie

来源：Primary Health Care Research and Development, 2016, 17(6): 611-621.

DOI：10.1017/S1463423616000293

• infant crying
• infant sleeping
• parenting

To provide descriptive figures for infant distress and associated parenting at night in normal London home environments during the first three months of age. Background: Most western infants develop long night-time sleep periods by four months of age. However, 30% of infants in many countries sleep for short periods and cry out on waking in the night: the most common type of infant sleep behaviour problem. Preventive interventions may help families and improve services. There is evidence that 'limit-setting' parenting, which is common in western cultures, supports the development of settled infant night-time behaviour. However, a recent review has challenged this and argued that this form of parenting risks distressing infants. This study describes limit-setting parenting as practiced in London, compares it with 'infant-cued' parenting and measures the associated infant distress. Methods: Longitudinal infrared video, diary and questionnaire observations comparing a General-Community (n = 101) group and subgroups with a Bed-Sharing (n = 19) group on measures of infant and parenting behaviours at night. Findings: General-Community parents took longer to detect and respond to infant waking and signalling, and to begin feeding, compared with the highly infant-cued care provided by Bed-Sharing parents. The average latency in General-Community parents' responding to infant night-time waking was 3.5 min, during which infants fuss/cried for around 1 min. Compared with Bed-Sharing parenting, General-Community parenting was associated with increased infant distress of around 30 min/night at twoweeks, reducing to 12 min/night by three months of age. However, differences in infant distress between General-Community subgroups adopting limit-setting versus infant-cued parenting were not large or statistically significant at any age. The figures provide descriptive evidence about limit-setting parenting which may counter some doubts about this form of parenting and help parents and professionals to make choices.

• 出版日期2016-11