A brief parental education for shaping sleep habits in 4-month-old infants.

Objective: To examine the effectiveness of a simple behavioral intervention with an educational booklet on the modification of parenting behaviors and the prevention of sleep disturbance in 4-month-old infants.

Design: A prospective cohort design with cluster sampling controls in a primary care setting.

Participants: A total of 136 mothers with 4-month-old infants who visited a local health check-up clinic and responded to the 3-month follow-up survey.

Methods: At the health check-up, an intervention group was provided with 10 minutes of group guidance and a simple educational booklet designed to encourage parents to promote favorable sleep patterns in their infants. A control group was provided with standard education alone. The two groups were questioned 3 months later through a survey sent by mail. Main measurements were parenting behaviors of parents and night waking of infants.

Results: Two undesirable maternal behaviors that reinforce night waking in infants exhibited a significantly greater improvement in the intervention group than in the control group. "Feed or check diaper promptly" behavior and "hold and soothe immediately" behavior after "night waking" in the infant were significantly decreased in the intervention group.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that increased night waking in infants was prevented in the intervention group. Our results indicate that the proportion of infant night waking was significantly higher in the control group, and there was also a tendency toward an increase in the proportion of infants who woke frequently and cried. These infant behaviors were not changed in the intervention group at the 3-month follow-up stage.