Increasing parenting self‐efficacy: The Fussy Baby Network^® intervention

Abstract

High levels of infant crying place families at risk for disrupted relationships, parenting stress, and even for child maltreatment. We conducted an evaluation of the Fussy Baby Network ® (FBN), a program supporting families struggling with infant crying and related concerns. The study contrasted 29 families who sought help from FBN with 27 families with excessively crying infants who did not seek services. Researchers measured parenting self-efficacy, depression, and stress in each group before and after the intervention. Results from hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated greater improvements over time in parenting self-efficacy for parents receiving FBN services. Furthermore, the greater improvements in parenting self-efficacy in the intervention group were not directly attributable to reductions in infant crying. These findings provide preliminary evidence that the FBN approach may be effective at boosting the confidence of parents struggling with caring for their infants. Future research with larger samples with baseline equivalence and stronger research designs should explore this intervention further. This study also suggests that interventions for families with excessively crying infants should move beyond the focus of reducing infant crying to a broader strategy of supporting parents and strengthening relationships between parents and their infants to build parenting capacity. K E Y W O R D Sinfant crying, intervention programs, parenting efficacy, parenting stress, prevention programs 232

Intergenerational risk and resilience pathways from discrimination and acculturative stress to infant mental health

“…One method for achieving this goal could involve brief parenting support and parenting skill sessions embedded into pediatric well-child visits (Weisleder et al, 2016) or home visiting programs (Granado-Villar et al, 2009) throughout a child's first year of life. There are a number of brief parenting interventions, such as Triple P, that have already been shown to improve parenting self-efficacy (Gilkerson et al, 2020;Tully & Hunt, 2016).…”

The Association between Parenting Confidence and Later Child Mental Health in the Area Affected by the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: The Fukushima Health Management Survey

“…One of the advantages of measuring parenting confidence is that improvements in parents’ perception of their own parenting have been achieved through interventions. After participation in short-term parenting training programs, parenting self-efficacy was enhanced in mothers with infants [ 58 ] and in various caregivers (for a review, see [ 59 ]). For the link between knowledge of child rearing and confidence [ 19 ], even a parenting workshop that educates struggling parents regarding basic knowledge of parenting may benefit children during the aftermath of a disaster.…”

Maternal lack of sleep in the first two years after childbirth: Perceived impacts and help‐seeking behaviors

“…For instance, professionals may, as a first step, establish with the parents' goals and tasks that are manageable rather than focussing on behavior change. The Fussy Network Baby ® intervention for infant crying and related problems proposes and describes such an approach for building and supporting PSE (Gilkerson et al., 2020). Self‐efficacy interventions may be necessary for knowledge to lead to behavior changes (Coleman & Karraker, 1998; Liyana Amin et al., 2018b) and as such would be a powerful addition to educative sleep interventions.…”