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| Credit: baby-giant.net |
Study supports notion
of leaving infants to cry themselves back to sleep
Today, mothers of newborns find themselves confronting a
common dilemma: Should they let their babies "cry it out" when they
wake up at night? Or should they rush to comfort their crying little one?
In fact, waking up in the middle of the night is the most
common concern that parents of infants report to pediatricians. Now, a new
study from Temple
psychology professor Marsha Weinraub gives parents some scientific facts to
help with that decision.
The study, published in Developmental Psychology, supports
the idea that a majority of infants are best left to self-soothe and fall back
to sleep on their own.
"By six months of age, most babies sleep through the
night, awakening their mothers only about once per week. However, not all
children follow this pattern of development," said Weinraub, an expert on
child development and parent-child relationships.
For the study, Weinraub and her colleagues measured patterns
of nighttime sleep awakenings in infants ages six to 36 months. Her findings
revealed two groups: sleepers and transitional sleepers.
"If you measure them while they are sleeping, all
babies — like all adults — move through a sleep cycle every 1 1/2 to 2 hours
where they wake up and then return to sleep," said Weinraub. "Some of
them do cry and call out when they awaken, and that is called 'not sleeping
through the night.'"
For the study, Weinraub's team asked parents of more than
1,200 infants to report on their child's awakenings at 6, 15, 24 and 36 months.
They found that by six months of age, 66 percent of babies — the sleepers — did
not awaken, or awoke just once per week, following a flat trajectory as they
grew. But a full 33 percent woke up seven nights per week at six months,
dropping to two nights by 15 months and to one night per week by 24 months.
Of the babies that awoke, the majority were boys. These
transitional sleepers also tended to score higher on an assessment of difficult
temperament which identified traits such as irritability and distractibility.
And, these babies were more likely to be breastfed. Mothers of these babies
were more likely to be depressed and have greater maternal sensitivity.
The findings suggest a couple of things, said Weinraub. One
is that genetic or constitutional factors such as those that might be reflected
in difficult temperaments appear implicated in early sleep problems.
"Families who are seeing sleep problems persist past 18 months should seek
advice," Weinraub said.
Another takeaway is that it is important for babies to learn
how to fall asleep on their own. "When mothers tune in to these night time
awakenings and/or if a baby is in the habit of falling asleep during
breastfeeding, then he or she may not be learning to how to self-soothe,
something that is critical for regular sleep," she said.
According to Weinraub, the mechanism by which maternal
depression is connected to infant awakenings is an area that would benefit from
further research. On the one hand, Weinraub said, it's possible that mothers
who are depressed at six and 36 months may have been depressed during pregnancy
and that this prenatal depression could have affected neural development and
sleep awakenings. At the same time, it's important to recognize that sleep
deprivation can, of course, exacerbate maternal depression, she said.
"Because the mothers in our study described infants
with many awakenings per week as creating problems for themselves and other
family members, parents might be encouraged to establish more nuanced and
carefully targeted routines to help babies with self-soothing and to seek
occasional respite," said Weinraub.
"The best advice is to put infants to bed at a regular
time every night, allow them to fall asleep on their own and resist the urge to
respond right away to awakenings."
###
The above story is based on the Janaury 2, 2013 news release
by Temple University.
The
research has been published online March 26, 2012 in Developmental Psychology: Weinraub
M, Bender RH, Friedman SL, Susman EJ, Knoke B, Bradley R, Houts R, Williams J. Patterns of developmental change in
infants' nighttime sleep awakenings from 6 through 36 months of age. Dev Psychol. 2012 Nov;48(6):1511-28.
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