Centre for Sleep Research, University of South Australia, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide SA 5000, Australia.
Sleep Med Rev. 2011 Oct;15(5):327-34. doi: 10.1016/j.smrv.2010.11.002. Epub 2011 Feb 3.
In Australia, as in many Westernised industrialised nations, the majority of families encourage infants to sleep alone or 'solo' from an early age. Sleeping solo can increase night time crying, which in turn disrupts sleep for both parent and infant. Night time waking and crying are frequently culturally constructed as behavioural sleep 'problems'. The pursuit of solo sleeping is thus achieved through 'behavioural sleep treatments' that teach an infant to sleep alone. Some behavioural extinction treatments necessitate a parent leaving an infant to cry for extended periods unattended, a practice reportedly difficult for parents. Despite parent's anxieties, and the potential (though little studied) stress to the infant, the pursuit of those behavioural sleep treatments are advocated by many psychologists and clinicians as acceptable and necessary interventions. This paper questions this necessity and critically reviews and debates these methods from biological, anthropological and cultural perspectives. Specifically, it considers Foucaultian, Leidloffian, attachment and behavioural perspectives. The central debate in this paper is if and why an infant's nocturnal cries should be ignored. It challenges the aetiology and acceptance of the status quo in the hope of revisiting the underlying belief that these methods are necessary. In doing so, the paper theorises the ways in which current sleep training techniques do or do not satisfy the needs of infants and their parents and questions the extent to which they can be reconciled. The paper posits an agenda for further research in the area that may facilitate the reconciliation of the needs of parents and those of their infants.
在澳大利亚，就像在许多西方工业化国家一样，大多数家庭都鼓励婴儿从小就独自睡觉或“独睡”。独自睡觉会增加夜间哭泣的次数，从而扰乱父母和婴儿的睡眠。夜间醒来和哭泣经常被文化构建为行为性睡眠“问题”。因此，通过教授婴儿独自睡觉的“行为性睡眠治疗”来实现独自睡觉的目标。一些行为性消退治疗需要父母让婴儿无人看管地长时间哭泣，据报道，这种做法让父母感到困难。尽管父母感到焦虑，而且婴儿可能会承受潜在的（尽管研究很少）压力，但许多心理学家和临床医生都提倡这些行为性睡眠治疗是可以接受和必要的干预措施。本文质疑这种必要性，并从生物学、人类学和文化的角度批判性地审查和辩论这些方法。具体来说，它考虑了福柯、莱德洛夫、依恋和行为观点。本文的核心争论是，婴儿的夜间哭声是否应该被忽视，如果应该，为什么。它挑战了这种现状的病因学和接受程度，以期重新审视这样一种信念，即这些方法是必要的。在这样做的过程中，本文从理论上探讨了当前的睡眠训练技术在多大程度上满足了婴儿及其父母的需求，并质疑它们在多大程度上可以得到调和。本文提出了该领域进一步研究的议程，这可能有助于调和父母和婴儿的需求。
