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Attachment and sleep: a study of night waking in 12-month-old infants
1Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel. anats@construct.haifa.ac.il
Insights
Mother-infant attachment quality shows a weak association with infant sleep patterns at 12 months. Night waking is common, but objective sleep data revealed no significant differences between secure and insecure infant attachment groups.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Infant Sleep Studies
- Attachment Theory
Background:
- The relationship between infant sleep regulation and mother-child attachment is theoretically linked but empirically under-supported.
- Previous research has explored sleep and attachment, yet robust evidence remains limited, particularly in longitudinal infant studies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between infant sleep patterns and mother-infant attachment quality at 12 months of age.
- To examine whether maternal descriptions of infant fussiness predict attachment patterns or are associated with sleep habits.
Main Methods:
- A longitudinal study involving 94 mother-infant dyads.
- Assessment of mother-infant attachment using the Strange Situation procedure at 12 months.
- Maternal reports on infant fussiness and sleep habits; objective sleep monitoring via actigraphy for a subgroup (n=37).
Main Results:
- Secure attachment was observed in 77% of the dyads.
- Maternal reports of infant fussiness correlated with sleep habits but not attachment patterns.
- Night waking was common (55-60% of secure and ambivalent infants), with objective actigraphy confirming higher awakening frequencies than reported, yet no significant differences between secure and insecure infants.
Conclusions:
- Night waking is a prevalent developmental occurrence in infants by the end of the first year.
- In this cohort of non-risk infants, objective sleep characteristics demonstrated only a marginal association with the quality of the child's attachment relationship.
Abstract:
Sleep regulation was examined from a mother-child relational perspective. Although the link between sleep and attachment has been previously discussed, empirical support is rather limited. This report, which is a part of a longitudinal investigation of sleep in infancy, examines the association between the child's sleep pattern and mother-infant attachment in 94 mother-infant dyads. At 12 months each dyad participated in the Strange Situation procedure; 77% were securely attached. Mothers' description of the infant's fussiness was not found to predict the attachment pattern, but was associated with the sleep habits. It was found that 55% of the secure and 60% of the ambivalent children were described as night wakers. To a sub-group of 37 infants, a sleep monitor (actigraph) was provided for two nights' recordings. The frequency of the objective awakenings was higher than what mothers reported but similar for the secure and insecure infants. The findings confirm that night waking at the end of the first year is a common developmental phenomenon. Among this group of non-risk infants, sleep characteristics were only marginally associated with the quality of the child's attachment relationship.