Research 2010 – 2011

Henderson et al. 2010. Sleeping Through the Night: The Consolidation of Self-regulated Sleep Across the First Year of Life. Pediatrics. 126(5):e1081-e1087

A study of 75 parents and infants conducted in New Zealand.

Objective – to determine when infants start ‘sleeping through the night’ based on 3 different criteria for ‘sleeping through’.

Summary – A prospective longitudinal design was used with repeated measures from 1 to 12 months of age. Data were collected via sleep diaries filled in by parents for 6 days/nights monthly over 12 months.

Sleeping through the night was assessed against 3 criteria:

• Criterion 1: sleeping uninterrupted from 24:00 to 05:00 hours (from Moore and Ucko);
• Criterion 2: the 8-hour criterion, sleeping uninterrupted for 8 hours minimum between sleep onset and time awake in the morning;
• Criterion 3: the family-congruent criterion, sleeping uninterrupted from 22:00 to 06:00 hours.” (p1083)

KEY FINDINGS:

• At 3 months 58% of infants met criterion 1
• At 4 months 58% met criterion 2
• At 5 months 53% met criterion 3

Henderson et al concluded that criterion 3 should be used by clinicians to define “sleeping through the night” for infants from 4 months old as it is “met by 50% of infants at 5 months of age, is congruent with family sleep patterns, and falls within typical sleep times” (p1086).

COMMENTS:

Despite the fact that by 12 months 27% of infants still did not meet criterion 3, Henderson et al recommend that “interventions intended to prevent infant sleep difficulties” be implemented in the first 3 months of life. Although Henderson et al may have made some contribution to defining a socially relevant meaning of “sleeping through the night”, the relevance of their inferences about the development of normal sleep consolidation – on any of their three criteria – is limited by lack of data on either infant sleep location (e.g. co-sleeping, bed-sharing, solitary) or infant feeding method (breast milk or formula), both of which are known to have a profound impact on real and perceived sleep duration.