Sleep tips helpful for new moms and infants

A programme that provides new mothers with simple strategies to settle their baby, teach their baby the difference between night and day, and achieve healthy adult and infant sleep habits leads to significant increase in adequate sleep for moms and babies. It's tough to be a new parent, and it's even tougher to be a new parent without enough sleep, so it was really exciting for the researchers to find that the tips and strategies that they gave to mothers were helpful Researchers from the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada, randomly assigned 30 first-time moms and their infants to the TIPS programme, which stands for Tips for Infant and Parent Sleep, or to a comparison control group. The TIPS group received a 45-minute meeting with a nurse to discuss sleep information and strategies, an 11-page booklet and weekly phone contact to reinforce information and solve problems. The control group received a 10-minue meeting during which only maternal sleep hygiene and basic information about infant sleep were discussed. They also received a one-page handout and calls on the third and fifth week to maintain contact only but not provide advice. Based on questionnaires and sleep diaries completed by moms at the start of the study and 6 weeks later, mothers in the TIPS group averaged 57 minutes more shut-eye at night than the control group, and fewer rated their sleep as a problem. Moreover, infants in the TIPS group had fewer nighttime awakenings and had maximum lengths of sleep time that were, on average, 46 minutes longer compared to those in the control group. The researchers plan on conducting a larger randomised, controlled trial to include families of diverse social and ethnic backgrounds. They also hope to determine if the sleep strategies can reduce postpartum depression and increase breastfeeding, and to see if the effects of the intervention can last until the baby is 12 weeks old.