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The present study of 124 families examined linkages between patterns of sleep arrangement use across the first 6 months post-partum and (a) family socio-demographics, (b) nighttime sleep of infants, mothers, and fathers, and (c) coparenting distress, and mothers' emotional availability with infants and bedtime. Families were recruited when infants were 1-month-old, and infants were classified, from video data available at 3 and 6 months post-partum, into one of three sleep arrangement pattern groups: Solitary sleep, cosleeping, and cosleeping (at 3 months)-to-solitary sleep (at 6 months). Mothers in cosleeping arrangements were more likely to be at higher socioeconomic risk, non-White, unemployed, and to have completed fewer years of education. Controlling for these variables and for duration of breast feeding and parental depressive and anxiety symptoms, subsequent 3 (sleep arrangement pattern) X 2 (infant age: 3 and 6 months) mixed-model analyses of covariance revealed that sleep arrangement patterns were more robustly linked with maternal sleep than with infant and father sleep. Mothers in cosleeping arrangements experienced more fragmented sleep and greater variability in fragmented sleep relative to mothers of infants in solitary sleep, and fathers in cosleeping arrangements showed greater variability across the week in the number of minutes of nighttime sleep. Cosleeping was associated with mother reports of less positive and more negative coparenting, and mothers in cosleeping arrangements were independently observed to be less emotionally available with their infants at bedtime compared to mothers in the other two sleep arrangement groups. These linkages were largely upheld after statistically controlling for mothers' stated preference for sleep arrangements they were using. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into the connections between social support, relationship quality and psychological health among pregnant adolescents has focused on a number of issues not addressed in previous research. These include the bidirectional exchange of support between pregnant adolescents and their parents and peers. It was established that bidirectional supporters have higher levels of mastery and life satisfaction and lower levels of depression and worry than providers, receivers and low supporters. There are close links between the reciprocal exchange of support with parents and a number of well-being measures.

The present study examined the independent and joint relations of parental self-efficacy beliefs and parent knowledge of child development to maternal behavioral competence among mothers of high-risk infants. Sixty-five mothers completed questionnaires regarding parental self-efficacy and knowledge of child development and were assessed for behavioral competence during a 10-min free-play session with their infants. There were no independent contributions of parental self-efficacy or parent knowledge of development in predicting parenting competence. However, the relation between parental self-efficacy and parenting competence was moderated by parent knowledge of development. Consistent with Bandura''s [Psychol. Rev. 84 (1977) 191; Am. Psychol. 44 (1989) 1175] formulations, parental self-efficacy and parenting competence were positively associated when parental knowledge of development was high. By contrast, parental self-efficacy beliefs and parenting competence were inversely associated when knowledge of development was low. Mothers reporting high parental self-efficacy, but low knowledge of development, were the least sensitive with their infants in play interactions, suggesting that these mothers were naively confident about their parenting abilities. Implications for designing interventions for naively confident mothers are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The present study examined predictive linkages between cumulative psychosocial and medical risk, assessed neonatally, and infant development and parenting stress at 4 months of infant corrected age. Predominantly low-income, African-American mothers and their preterm infants served as participants. Cumulative psychosocial risk predicted early mental, but not motor development, while cumulative medical risk predicted both mental and motor development. Cumulative psychosocial risk, but not medical risk, predicted parenting stress. Few studies of preterm infants have reported links between cumulative psychosocial risk and infant development at such an early age, nor has earlier work found associations between cumulative psychosocial risk and mothers'' perceptions of parenting. Results support the premise that early intervention should target both the medical and psychosocial needs of low-income families with preterm infants, and that addressing psychosocial stressors shortly after birth may improve developmental outcomes in infancy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The present study examines the influences of mothers’ emotional availability toward their infants during bedtime, infant attachment security, and interactions between bedtime parenting and attachment with infant temperamental negative affectivity, on infants’ emotion regulation strategy use at 12 and 18 months. Infants’ emotion regulation strategies were assessed during a frustration task that required infants to regulate their emotions in the absence of parental support. Whereas emotional availability was not directly related to infants’ emotion regulation strategies, infant attachment security had direct relations with infants’ orienting toward the environment and tension reduction behaviors. Both maternal emotional availability and security of the mother–infant attachment relationship interacted with infant temperamental negative affectivity to predict two strategies that were less adaptive in regulating frustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Previous work has shown that early experience influences infant cortisol secretion. Few studies, however, have examined associations between parenting quality and cortisol levels and patterning in very young infants. Aims This study examined linkages between maternal emotional availability (EA) during a routine caregiving task, bedtime, and infant cortisol in the first 3 months of life. Concurrent and longitudinal associations between maternal EA and infant cortisol were examined. Study design Families were visited when their infants were 1 and 3 months old. Video equipment was set up in order to record the infant's bedtime routine. Parents were provided with materials with which to take saliva samples from their infants at late afternoon, bedtime, and the following morning. Subjects At 1 month, participants were 96 mothers and infants living in a rural U.S. state. Data were available for 88 mothers and infants at 3 months. Outcome measures Maternal EA was scored from videotapes of bedtime at each age point. Infant cortisol was assessed from the saliva samples taken by parents. Results Regression analyses indicated that at 1 and 3 months of age, infants of more emotionally available mothers showed lower levels of cortisol secretion across the night than infants of less emotionally available mothers. Additionally, multilevel model analyses indicated that infants of more emotionally available mothers showed greater evidence of a decline in their cortisol levels across the evening, followed by an increase across the nighttime into the morning in their cortisol at 3 months. Conclusions Findings suggest that maternal care in the context of a routine caregiving task is associated with lower stress reactivity and with earlier circadian patterning in very young infants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]