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Family Contexts of Sleep and Health Across the Life Course pp 3–23Cite as

Infant Sleep in a Family Context

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Part of the book series: National Symposium on Family Issues ((NSFI,volume 8))

Abstract

This chapter reviews the SIESTA research program and its contributions to our understanding of the role of family processes in the development of sleep in infancy during the past seven years, and the reciprocal impact of infant sleep on family life. Building on Sadeh and Anders’ (Infant Mental Health Journal 14(1):17–34, 1993) transactional/ecological model of infant sleep, SIESTA makes use of direct observations of parenting during infant bedtimes and across the night to examine the direct and interactive role of parenting practices and parenting quality in predicting infant sleep quality, how both are important in predicting sleep quality in infancy, and how parenting in infant sleep contexts is also predicted by infant sleep quality. Also discussed are linkages between maternal personal distress and coparenting distress (i.e., distress about how parents are working together in caring for the infant), nighttime parenting, infant sleep quality, and choice of infant sleep arrangements. The SIESTA program on infants, and newly funded SIESTA projects on parenting, child sleep, and children’s transition to kindergarten, extend earlier work by demonstrating complex bidirectional linkages between child sleep development, child and parent sleep quality, and the larger family system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Douglas M. Teti

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  1. Douglas M. Teti
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Social Science Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    Susan M. McHale

  2. Department of Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    Valarie King

  3. Department of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    Orfeu M. Buxton

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Teti, D.M. (2017). Infant Sleep in a Family Context. In: McHale, S., King, V., Buxton, O. (eds) Family Contexts of Sleep and Health Across the Life Course. National Symposium on Family Issues, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64780-7_1

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