Investigators from the Royal Children’s Hospital, in Melbourne, identified more than 150 mothers of babies aged between six and 12 months who had “severe sleep problems”.

A control group was mailed a single sheet describing normal sleep patterns in infants, while the sleep intervention group attended fortnightly consultations held by a paediatrician.

Mothers were also issued with a questionnaire to assess whether or not they were depressed.

The consultations focused on the notion of “controlled crying” in which parents respond to their babies’ crying at increasing time intervals, eventually allowing the infants to fall asleep by themselves.

Mothers in the intervention group also received a sleep management plan and information about the development and management of sleep problems.

At intervals of two and four months, the sleeping patterns of the babies in both groups were assessed.

After two months, more infant sleep problems had been resolved in the intervention group and even those problems that remained were less severe than the babies in the control group.

However, at four months the resolution of the sleep problem in the intervention group was no longer significantly better than the control group.

The authors of the study point out, “This could have been due to the natural tendency for sleep problems to improve with time or to mothers in the intervention group stopping effective behavioural strategies, or both.”

At two and four months, the intervention appeared to reduce the symptoms of depression among mothers suffering from the condition.

The intervention was acceptable to mothers and reduced the need for other sources of help.

The authors conclude, “This brief community-based sleep intervention decreased infant sleep problems and symptoms of maternal depression.”

However, they call for their study to be replicated on a larger scale and to be implemented by primary healthcare professionals.

Source: British Medical Journal, May 2002

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