Parenting and Infant Sleep

ARTICLE IN PRESS
Sleep Medicine Reviews xxx (2009) 1–8

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Sleep Medicine Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/smrv

CLINICAL REVIEW

Parenting and infant sleep
Avi Sadeh a, *, Liat Tikotzky b, Anat Scher c a The Adler Center for Research in Child Development and Psychopathology, Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel Department of Psychology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev., Beer Sheva, Israel c Department of Counseling and Human Development, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel b s u m m a r y
Keywords: Infant Sleep Parenting Parent Mother Father

Infant sleep undergoes dramatic evolution during the first year of life. This process is driven by underlying biological forces but is highly dependent on environmental cues including parental influences. In this review the links between infant sleep and parental behaviors, cognitions, emotions and relationships as well as psychopathology are examined within the context of a transactional model. Parental behaviors, particularly those related to bedtime interactions and soothing routines, are closely related to infant sleep. Increased parental involvement is associated with more fragmented sleep. Intervention based on modifying parental behaviors and cognitions have direct effect on infant sleep. It appears that parental personality, psychopathology and related cognitions and emotions contribute to parental sleep-related behaviors and ultimately influence infant sleep. However, the links are bidirectional and dynamic so that poor infant sleep may influence parental behaviors and poor infant sleep appears to be a family stressor and a risk factor for maternal depression. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction The term parenting refers to a complex set of parents’ behaviors, duties, roles, expectations, cognitions and emotions related to caring, raising and educating their child. The evolution of

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