All issues > Volume 34(5); 1991

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1991;34(5):629-636. Published online May 31, 1991.

Sleep patern and night waking in infants.

Keun Lee¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea

Received: September 4, 1990;  Accepted: January 8, 1991.

Abstract

Night waking is very common in infancy and can be a transient phenomenon but, if it persists, it can be a symptom of more serious behavior disorders or emotional problems. To study the sleeping pattern and night waking in infants, a survey was taken on 219 parents of 3 month to 2 year old infants, at outpatient clinic of Department of Pediatrics, Ewha Womans University, from Jan. to Feb. 1990. Most of the babies slept 6 to 11 hours at night and 1 to 2 hours day time. Only 4 (1.8%) slept alone and 210 (95.9%) with other family member, mother and father being the most frequent cosleeping family. 13(6.0%) babies had transitional objects, e.g. toy, doll or blanket, and night time habits indluding finger sucking were present in 75(34%) and 41 babies (34%) had bottle at sleeping time as routine. Babies who woke during sleeping were 183 (83.6%) but less than 1/3 of them, 162(28.6%) cried to wake parents. Breast milk fed babies had less frequent waking than formula or mixed fed ones. Babies who had transitional objects or habit woke more frequently than who had not. Most frequent parental response to night waking was “patting or holding” the baby. Night waking was described as problem to parents in 16%. These findings were quite different from the reports from Western countries and appears to reflect culturral differences in child rearing.

Keywords :Sleep;Night waking