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Sleep and Sleep Disturbances

Regulatory Processes in Infancy

  • Chapter
Handbook of Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

The first 2 years of an infant’s life involve significant changes in sleep and waking state organization. Traditionally, sleep has been viewed as a characteristic of an individual. However, the infant’s biological sleep-wake system is regulated, in large part, by parent-infant interaction and is affected by the infant’s cognitive, emotional, and social experiences. How do the developing infant’s biological systems, such as the circadian, nutritional, and fatigue systems, interact with environmental experiences to produce nighttime “self-soothing” or “signaling” behavior in the first year of life? Does the process of infant sleep-wake state regulation in the first year predict infant sleep disturbance in the second year or sleep problems in later childhood? The study of sleep-wake state maturation in infancy provides an extraordinary opportunity to examine the complexity of influences that are associated with the processes of regulation and, in turn, the sleep-wake problems (outcomes) that may result.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Family and Infant Development Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California, 95817, USA

    Beth L. Goodlin-Jones, Melissa M. Burnham & Thomas F. Anders

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  1. Beth L. Goodlin-Jones
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  2. Melissa M. Burnham
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  3. Thomas F. Anders
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

    Arnold J. Sameroff

  2. Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

    Michael Lewis

  3. Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Suzanne M. Miller

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Goodlin-Jones, B.L., Burnham, M.M., Anders, T.F. (2000). Sleep and Sleep Disturbances. In: Sameroff, A.J., Lewis, M., Miller, S.M. (eds) Handbook of Developmental Psychopathology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4163-9_17

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