This study investigates the relationship of etiological factors to infant sleeping problems during the first year, and at follow-up during the second year of life. The relevant factors for concurrent sleeping problems (in order of importance) were problematic maternal cognition concerning setting limits on the infant, fussy-difficult infant temperament, maternal anxiety-depression, ambivalent attachment, and certain maternal care-giving behaviors involving the use of active physical comforting (cuddling to sleep, settling on sofa or in parental bed, and giving a feed). High initial levels of sleeping problems largely explained the continuity in infant sleeping problems over time. However, this continuity was significantly mediated by the influence of both problematic maternal cognition and infant temperament on the parental use of active physical comforting to settle infants to sleep. In addition, ambivalent attachment had a small but significant independent contribution to persistent problems. Regarding discontinuity in infant sleeping problems over time, infants who developed sleeping problems were those whose parents used high levels of active physical comforting, whereas those infants whose sleeping problems recovered were more likely to have mothers with low depression-anxiety. The significance of these results is discussed with respect to developmental models of infant sleeping problems, and the assessment and treatment of infant sleeping problems.RESUMEN: Este estudio investiga las relaciones de los factores etiológicos con respecto a los problemas de dormir del infante durante su primer año de edad, y al tiempo del seguimiento durante el segundo año de vida. Los factores relevantes para los comunes problemas de dormir (en orden de importancia) fueron la problemática percepción materna respecto al ponerle límites al infante, el temperamento exigente y difícil del infante, la ansiedad y depresión maternal, una afectividad ambivalente, así como ciertos comportamientos maternos de prestar cuidado los cuales involucran el uso de activos consoladores físicosThe authors wish to express their gratitude to Rosie Nurick and Dr. Caroline Yorston in facilitating recruitment of subjects; Professor Gregory Stores and Dr. Lucy Wiggs for comments on earlier manuscripts; Professors Bengt and Linda Muthén for statistical advice; to the Wellcome trust for providing funding for the initial six months of the project; and to the Oxfordshire Health Services Research Committee for authorizing funding for the remainder of the project. Direct correspondence to: Julian Morrell, Winnicott Research Unit, Department of Psychology, The University of Reading, 3 Earley Gate, P.O. Box 238, Reading, RG6 6AL, UK; e-mail: julian.morrell@ntlworld.com. • J. Morrell and H. Steele(abrazarse para dormir, instalarse en un sofá o en la cama de los padres, y dar de comer). Los altos niveles de problemas de dormir explican en gran parte la continuidad de tales problemas en el infante a medida que pasa el tiempo. Sin embargo, esta continuida...
This study examines the contribution of children's linguistic ability and mothers' use of mental‐state language to young children's understanding of false belief and their subsequent ability to make belief‐based emotion attributions. In Experiment 1, children (N = 51) were given three belief‐based emotion‐attribution tasks. A standard task in which the protagonist was a story character and the emotional outcomes were imagined, and two videos in which the story protagonist was a real infant and the emotional outcomes were observable (high and low expressed emotion conditions). Children's verbal ability (semantic competence) was also measured. In Experiment 2, children (N = 75) were given two belief‐based emotion tasks: the standard story task and the high expressed emotion video. In addition, children's verbal ability (syntactic competence) and mothers' use of mental‐state attributes when describing their children were also measured. The results showed that: (1) the lag between understanding false belief and emotion attribution was a stable feature of children's reasoning across the three tests; and (2) children who were more linguistically advanced and whose mothers' described them in more mentalistic terms were more likely to understand the association between false belief and emotion. The findings underline the continuing importance of verbal ability and linguistic input for children's developing theory‐of‐mind understanding, even after they display an understanding of false belief.
The development of a new parental self-report questionnaire, the Parental Interactive Bedtime Behaviour Scale (PIBBS) is described. The PIBBS was designed to capture a wide range of parental behaviours used to settle infants off to sleep. The commonest behaviours employed were giving a feed, talking softly to the child, cuddling in the arms, and stroking. A factor analysis revealed five settling strategies; 'active physical comforting' (e.g. cuddling in arms); 'encouraging infant autonomy' (e.g. leaving to cry); 'movement' (e.g. car rides), 'passive physical comforting' (e.g. standing next to the cot without picking the infant up), and 'social comforting' (e.g. reading a story). Excessive 'active physical comforting' and reduced 'encourage autonomy' strategy use was associated with infant sleeping problems. Regarding developmental change in strategy between 1 and 2 years, the later the onset at which 'encourage autonomy' became the principal strategy used, the more likely that persistent infant sleeping problems would be present. Factors accounting for the change in strategy use over time were: (i) parental adaptation to infant developmental maturation; (ii) the interaction between maternal cognition and strategy, and, to a lesser extent; (iii) the interaction between infant temperament and parental strategy.
These data would suggest that only in boys was there evidence for the existence of a sensitive period for the development of hyperactive symptoms, and to a lesser extent, conduct disorder symptoms.
Sleeping problems in young children are very common, affecting up to 20% of 1-year-olds. Behaviour therapy is the most widely recognised treatment but a significant proportion of parents find it aversive. This suggests that parental cognitions may be important and underevaluated. The aims of this study were therefore fourfold: (1) to describe the development of a new tool to measure maternal cognitions in relation to infant sleeping problems, the Maternal Cognitions about Infant Sleep Questionnaire (MCISQ): (2) to assess the psychometric properties of the MCISQ; (3) to test the hypothesis that maternal cognitions will be associated with, and specific to, infant sleep problems; and (4) to discuss the implications of the findings with respect to aetiological models of infant sleep problems, treatment, and future research. Results showed that maternal cognitions about setting limits, anger at the infant's demands, and doubts about parenting competence were significantly associated with infant sleep problems, whereas cognitions about infant hunger or cot death were not. It is hypothesised that these cognitive responses, if extreme, may disrupt sensitive parent-child interactions, which over time could lead to impairments in the development of infant self-regulation.
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