Parental regulation of infant sleep: round‐the‐clock efforts for social synchronization

This article describes a context‐sensitive study of parental regulation of infant sleep that includes the whole 24‐hr day, parents’ intentions, and familial and sociocultural conditions. The results are based on a longitudinal qualitative study in Norway of 51 families. Parents were interviewed in the infants’ first year of life and approximately 18 months later. An interpretive analysis in four steps was conducted, informed by cultural psychological perspectives on development. The parents were found to perform five types of regulatory actions: facilitating sleep, letting sleep, letting be awake, keeping awake, and waking. These actions were performed continuously throughout the 24‐hr day, each to different extents and at different hours in individual families, forming a regulation cycle. We describe patterns and variations in regulation cycles, changes over time as increased social synchronization, and how the regulation cycle is embedded in familial and sociocultural conditions. Finally, implications for clinical practice are discussed. RESUMEN El desarrollo del ciclo de dormir de los infantes es influido por condiciones familiares y socio‐culturales, pero hace falta un conocimiento sobre cómo la regulación de los padres sobre el sueño del infante se relaciona con la situación específica de vida de una familia. Este ensayo describe un estudio de contexto sensible de la regulación de los padres del sueño del infante que incluye todas las 24 horas del dí...
Source: Infant Mental Health Journal - Category: Child Development Authors: Tags: ARTICLE Source Type: research