Family and Cultural Influences on Sleep Development

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Sleep is a biopsychosocial process that is influenced by the complex interaction of biologic rhythms, including sleep homeostatic mechanisms, chronobiologic factors, parenting, and temperament. However, family structure, culturally specific values, and beliefs are all elements that impact the ecology of a child's sleep. Dramatic demographic changes in many countries have been witnessed in recent years, which have resulted in health professionals and pediatricians being confronted with families of widely differing cultural origins. Attitudes and beliefs on infant sleeping strongly influence whether or not infant sleep behavior is perceived as problematic. Thus, it is advantageous to explore a child's sleep behavior in a multicultural setting. Cultural comparisons are of intrinsic value because they allow not only a better understanding of sleep in different contexts but also an evaluation of the eventual benefits and consequences of different cultural sleep practices. This article provides an overview of some specific sleep-related behaviors and practices highly influenced by different cultural contexts.

Section snippets

Bedtime behavior and practices

Parent–child bedtime interactions have been consistently shown to be linked to children's sleep. Child and parent sleep-related behaviors in Anglo European countries consist of distinct bedtime rituals that are meant to enhance sleep. For young children, these activities, which usually take place in the child's bedroom, include putting on bed clothes or pajamas, holding a transitional object, and reading stories or singing songs, leading to a gradual diminution of external stimuli in the

Setting and sleeping arrangements

A set of physical and cultural factors define the actual conditions under which people sleep. Bedding, including covers and pillows, mattresses, box-springs, and sleep garments, vary widely across cultures.

In a comparative anthropological study, Worthman and Melby18 reported sleep conditions and patterns across a worldwide range of traditional communities; these population used to sleep on bare ground and sleeping arrangements vary daily and are highly flexible.

Sleeping on the floor is a

Sleep patterns

Several studies have suggested that social pressure, television, Internet, and late night movies compete with sleep, resulting in a rather drastic change in sleep habits and reduced sleep time in children.70, 71, 72 A cross-cultural study performed in the early 1990s of Dutch and American families with infants and young children73 showed that Dutch babies were getting more sleep on a regular schedule that included earlier bedtimes than American children of the same age. In this study Dutch

Summary

Childcare always occurs within a cultural context, and childrearing practices are shaped by parents' cultural beliefs. As stated by Weisner, “Children grow up in a wonderful and remarkable diversity of cultural communities around the world. Every cultural community provides developmental pathways for children within some ecological-cultural context.87 Cultural pathways are made for everyday routines of life, and routines are made up by cultural activities.” In this increasingly globalized

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