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This study examines the association between nighttime sleep characteristics and cortisol levels and how these variables relate to aspects of children’s temperament and behavior. Twenty-seven healthy children, aged 12–36 months, attending group childcare settings, participated in the study. Each child’s sleep was measured at home with actigraphy over three nights. Saliva samples were collected by the mothers at bedtime and within 30 min of awakening. In addition, both the mother and the daycare teacher rated the child’s behavioral difficulties and negative emotionality. It was found that children with more fragmented sleep displayed higher awakening cortisol levels compared to children with more efficient sleep. Moreover, elevated awakening cortisol levels were correlated with teachers’ ratings of internalizing behavior and negative emotionality. These preliminary findings suggest that awakening cortisol may serve as a useful index of adrenocortical reactivity in young children, signaling a disturbance in physiological regulation, and underscore the need for more research pertaining to the dynamic associations between sleep and HPA-axis across the 24-hr period.

Sleep regulation was examined from a mother-child relational perspective. Although the link between sleep and attachment has been previously discussed, empirical support is rather limited. This report, which is a part of a longitudinal investigation of sleep in infancy, examines the association between the child's sleep pattern and mother-infant attachment in 94 mother-infant dyads. At 12 months each dyad participated in the Strange Situation procedure; 77% were securely attached. Mothers' description of the infant's fussiness was not found to predict the attachment pattern, but was associated with the sleep habits. It was found that 55% of the secure and 60% of the ambivalent children were described as night wakers. To a sub-group of 37 infants, a sleep monitor (actigraph) was provided for two nights' recordings. The frequency of the objective awakenings was higher than what mothers reported but similar for the secure and insecure infants. The findings confirm that night waking at the end of the first year is a common developmental phenomenon. Among this group of non-risk infants, sleep characteristics were only marginally associated with the quality of the child's attachment relationship.

The SINERGIA model is effective in improving metabolic control and major cardiovascular risk factors, while allowing diabetologists to dedicate more time to patients with more acute disease.

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A longitudinal study of the development of sleep patterns addressed the issue of continuity and change in night waking in the course of the first year. Mothers of 118 infants, who took part in a follow-up study of normal babies, completed a sleep questionnaire at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months. Regular night waking was a common characteristic throughout the first year (46% at 3 months, 39%, 58% and 55% respectively at 6, 9 and 12 months). The number of awakenings per night was a function of age. Following a decline in the number of interruptions from 3 to 6 months, an increase in night waking at age 9 months was recorded. Although the methodology does not lend itself to an objective validation of the changes in sleep-wake states, nor is it suitable for causal explanations, it is, nevertheless, important to note this profile. The increase in night waking towards the end of the first year coincides with significant socio-emotional advances which characterize this developmental stage.