IGNORING CHILDREN'S BEDTIME CRYING: THE POWER OF WESTERN‐ORIENTED BELIEFS

Ignoring children's bedtime crying (ICBC) is an issue that polarizes parents as well as pediatricians. While most studies have focused on the effectiveness of sleep interventions, no study has yet questioned which parents use ICBC. Parents often find children's sleep difficulties to be very challenging, but factors such as the influence of Western approaches to infant care, stress, and sensitivity have not been analyzed in terms of ICBC. A sample of 586 parents completed a questionnaire to investigate the relationships between parental factors and the method of ICBC. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Latent variables were used to measure parental stress (Parental Stress Scale; J.O. Berry & W.H. Jones, 1995), sensitivity (Situation‐Reaction‐Questionnaire; Y. Hänggi, K. Schweinberger, N. Gugger, & M. Perrez, 2010), Western‐oriented parental beliefs (Rigidity), and children's temperament (Parenting Stress Index; H. Tröster & R.R. Abidin). ICBC was used by 32.6% (n = 191) of parents in this study. Parents’ Western‐oriented beliefs predicted ICBC. Attitudes such as feeding a child on a time schedule and not carrying it out to prevent dependence were associated with letting the child cry to fall asleep. Low‐sensitivity parents as well as parents of children with a difficult temperament used ICBC more frequently. Path analysis shows that parental stress did not predict ICBC. The results suggest that ICBC has become part of Western childrearing tradition.     

The My Emotions Questionnaire: A self-report of mothers’ emotional responses to infant crying

The purpose of this article was to examine the psychometrics of the My Emotions Questionnaire, a self-report designed to assess mothers’ emotional reactions when their infants cry. Participants were 240 first-time mothers. When infants were 6 months and 1 year old, mothers completed the new questionnaire and measures assessing beliefs and behavioral responses to infant crying, and interview-based measures of mothers’ emotional reactions and causal attributions about crying were administered. Maternal sensitivity and negative behaviors were observed when infants were 6 months and 1 and 2 years old. Mothers reported on their discipline practices when children were 2 years old. Five emotion factors emerged based on exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the 6-month data: Amusement, Anxiety, Frustration, Sympathy, and Protective. The five-factor structure was supported via a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the 1-year data. All scales demonstrated adequate internal consistency reliability and significant stability from 6 months to 1 year. Amusement, Frustration, and Protectiveness demonstrated the best convergent validity with cry cognitions and predictive validity to parenting measures, followed by Anxiety, although effects tended to be small to moderate. Evidence for the validity of Sympathy was less compelling. The potential utility of the questionnaire for basic and applied research is discussed.