Integrating primal wisdom with the modern Western worldview
Antonella Sansone in Cultivating Mindfulness to Raise Children Who Thrive, 2020
Primal wisdom cultures teach us that constant affectionate physical contact with a baby is critically important for a child’s healthy development. Scientists have known this for decades. How often an infant is touched and held and the related feeling of connection and being felt can leave lasting effects not just on behaviour and growth, but all the way down to the molecular level of the DNA (Moore et al., 2017). The pleasurable experience affects the epigenome – the biochemical changes that influence gene expression in the body. This underscores the importance of feeling connected through physical contact, especially for distressed infants. The potential physiological benefits to infants sleeping in proximity to their caregivers, especially in the first year of life, and to breastfeeding, so biologically entwined to co-sleeping, have been described (McKenna et al., 1994; McKenna & Bernshaw, 2017). Breastfeeding and infant-parent co-sleeping have been both designed for adaptation by natural selection over millions of years of human evolution. Because human infants are born neurologically immature, develop slowly and remain dependent for a long period of time, continuous contact and proximity to the mother served to maximise the chances of infant survival and thus parental reproductive success (Konner, 2005). Feeling connected is hence a human biological necessity.
Breastfeeding and infant sleep – what medical practitioners need to know
Amy Brown, Wendy Jones in A Guide to Supporting Breastfeeding for the Medical Profession, 2019
Although breastfeeders get the same or more total sleep per night, feeding-related sleep fragmentation means an experience of poorer sleep quality for breastfeeding mothers in some cases (Ball 2003; McBean and Montgomery-Downs 2014). As a consequence, the vast majority of breastfeeding mothers tend to sleep with their babies in their bed as a strategy to cope with sleep disruption for at least some of the time (Ball 2003; Ateah and Hamelin 2008; Rudzik and Ball 2016). Numerous studies have confirmed that, although bed-sharing breastfeeding mothers wake frequently to feed, they also wake for shorter periods and fall back to sleep more rapidly (Mosko et al. 1997b) when compared to not bed-sharing. It is unsurprising that breastfeeding mothers comprise the largest group of co-sleepers. Of 34 studies exploring maternal reasons for co-sleeping, 26 reported breastfeeding as the key reason (Salm-Ward 2015). It is important to understand, therefore, that bed-sharing is a common night-time care strategy for breastfeeding mothers and babies which supports their evolved biology (Ball and Russell 2012; McKenna and Gettler 2016; Ball 2017).
Sleep in Early Childhood
Mary Nolan, Shona Gore in Contemporary Issues in Perinatal Education, 2023
This review does not address sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, in part because treatment is primarily the domain of physicians. Additionally, this review does not address specific socio-cultural factors such as co-sleeping, feeding practices, or environmental factors (e.g., tobacco use, neighborhood noise, type of bedding) – all of which impact both parent and child sleep. Instead, we provide a selective overview of four interrelated topics regarding sleep in early childhood with a specific emphasis on behavioral interventions for sleep problems. First, we briefly review the typical changes in sleep from birth through age three. Second, we highlight parenting practices in relation to child development and cultural context. Third, we summarize effective sleep interventions for young children. Finally, we emphasize the role of the bedtime routine as a relatively straightforward practice that, when implemented early, may prevent the development of sleep problems.
Using functional behavioral assessment to treat sleep problems in two children with autism and vocal stereotypy
Published in International Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 2019
Laurie McLay, Karyn France, Neville Blampied, Jolene Hunter
Sleep onset delay was classified as the number of minutes between the child being bid goodnight, and sleep onset. Sleep-interfering behaviors were defined as behaviors which negatively affected the child’s ability to settle to sleep. These included stereotypic behaviors that did not appear to be sleep conducive or soothing, seeking out activities or items, and so on. NWs were defined as the child waking following initial sleep onset. The duration of awakenings was recording from the time the child was deemed to be awake, to the time at which sleep onset resumed. Co-sleeping was categorized as parent-initiated co-sleeping (i.e. the parent lay with the child in the child’s bed until they fell asleep) and child-initiated co-sleeping (i.e. the child slept in their parents bed). Each of these behaviors was documented from the time the child was bid goodnight, to the time when the child woke to begin the day.
Neighborhood Socio-Economic Factors and Associations with Infant Sleep Health
Published in Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 2021
Anna L. MacKinnon, Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen, Suzanne Tough
Infant sleep outcomes were assessed using maternal report on single-item questions from the Q4 survey at 12 months postpartum for sleep consolidation (“How many hours in a row does your baby usually sleep at night?”), frequency of awakenings (“On average, how many times per night was you or your partner’s sleep interrupted by your baby this past month” on a scale from 1 = never to 4 = five or more times) and onset latency (“At this point in time, how long does it take your baby to fall asleep?” on a scale from 1 = less than 15 min to 5 = more than 60 min). Mothers were also asked “Where does your baby typically sleep at night?” and co-sleeping was determined by responses indicating that the baby sleeps in the same room or bed as the mother versus in a separate room.
Sleep and asthma management in youth with poorly-controlled asthma and their caregivers: a qualitative approach
Published in Journal of Asthma, 2022
Corinne Evans, Andrea Fidler, Dawn Baker, Mary Wagner, David Fedele
Consistent with extant literature, caregivers of adolescents with poorly-controlled asthma described experiencing frequent sleep disturbances and feelings of fear or anxiety regarding their child’s nocturnal asthma (20). Some caregivers made substantial sacrifices to manage their child’s nocturnal asthma. For example, one caregiver reported co-sleeping with her child as a mechanism for symptom monitoring. Although co-sleeping is associated with sleep disruption in school-age children, less is known about the impact of co-sleeping on adolescents (32). Co-sleeping is also more prevalent within certain cultures (33). Previous research suggests a negative relationship between caregiver QOL and youth (children and adolescents) nocturnal asthma symptoms; as youth nocturnal asthma symptoms increase, caregiver QOL tends to decrease (34–36). Caregiver responses from the current study are congruent with previous findings and demonstrate that caregivers can experience a high level of burden associated with their child’s asthma-related sleep disturbances.