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Infant sleep training refers to a number of different regimens parents employ to adjust their child's sleep behaviors. ==The development of sleep over the first year== During the first year of life, infants spend most of their time in the sleeping state. Assessment of sleep during infancy presents an opportunity to study the impact of sleep on the maturation of the central nervous system (CNS), overall functioning, and future cognitive, psychomotor, and temperament development. Sleep is essential to human life and involves both physiologic and behavioral processes. During the first year of life, infants spend most of their time in the sleeping state. Sleep not simply as a resting state, but a state that involves intense brain activity.〔Carskadon MA, Dement WC. Normal human sleep: an overview. In: Kryger MH, Roth T, Dement WC, editors. Principles and practice of sleep medicine. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier Saunders; 2005. pp. 13–23.〕 The first year of life is a time of substantial change in the development of both the human brain and sleep. The relationship between the two is vital, as the control of sleep and the sleep-wake cycle are regulated by the CNS.〔Sheldon SH. In: Evaluating sleep in infants and children. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven; 1996. Development of CNS function; pp. 71–95.〕 The long sustained sleep period (LSP) is the period of time that a child sleeps without awaking. The length of this period increases dramatically between the first and second months. Between the ages of three and twenty-one months, LSP plateaus, increasing on average only about 30 minutes.〔Henderson, J.M.T., France, K.G. & Blampied, N.M. (2010). The consolidation of infants' nocturnal sleep across the first year of life. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 15 (4), 211-220.〕 In contrast, a child’s longest self-regulated sleep period (LSRSP) is the period of time where a child, without sleep problems, is able to self-initiate sleep without parental intervention upon waking.〔 This self-regulation, also called ‘’’self-soothing’’’, allows the child to consistently use these skills during the nocturnal period. LSRSP dramatically increases in length over the first 4 months, plateaus, and then steadily increases at 9 months. By about 6 months, most infants can sleep 8 hours or more at night uninterrupted or without parental intervention upon awaking.〔 In terms of actual numbers, an infant from one to three months of age may sleep sixteen to eighteen hours a day in periods that last from three to four hours. By three months the period of sleep lengthens to about four or five hours, with a decrease in the total sleep time to about fourteen or fifteen hours. At three months, they also start to sleep when it is dark and wake when it is light. By 4 months there are 2 distinct napping periods, mid-morning and late afternoon. By 6 months the longest LSP is 6 hours and occurs during the night. There are two 3-or-more hour naps with a total average sleep time of fourteen hours.〔Mayes, L.C. & Cohen, D.J. (2002). The Yale Child Study Center Guide to Understand Your Child. United States: Little, Brown and Company.〕 Though sleep is a primarily biological process, it can be treated as a behavior. This means that it can be altered and managed through practice and can be learned by the child. Healthy sleep habits can be established during the first four months to lay a foundation for healthy sleep. These habits typically include sleeping in a crib (instead of a car seat, stroller, or swing), being put down to sleep drowsy but awake, and avoiding negative sleep associations, such as nursing to sleep or using a pacifier to fall asleep, which may be hard to break in the future.〔 Every child is different and each child’s sleep becomes regular at different ages within a particular range. In the first few months of life, each time the baby is laid down for bed and each time he or she awakens is an opportunity for the infant to learn sleep self-initiation and to fall asleep without excessive external help from their caregiver. Experts say that the ideal bedtime for an infant falls between 6 pm and 8 pm, with the ideal wake-up time falling between 6 am and 7 am. At four months of age, infants typically take hour naps two to three times a day, with the third nap dropped by about 9 months. By 1 year of age, the amount of sleep that most infants get nightly approximates to that of adults.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Infant sleep training」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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