Objective. In this paper we examine the association between mothers’ attachment style and their infants’ sleep patterns. We hypothesized that low levels of anxiety and avoidance attachment orientations would enable the mother to use more efficient strategies to put her infant to sleep, and in time the infant will assimilate these strategies and consequently develop suitable and more independent sleep routines. Participants and Measures. The 125 mothers who participated in this study completed (a) a measure of attachment orientations (b) and a measure of mother’s perception of their infant’s sleep patterns. Results. The results indicated that the greater the mothers’ avoidance attachment orientation is, the longer it takes to put the child to bed at night, the more wakeful the child is at night, and the more the night wakings are. However, for mothers with high anxiety attachment orientation, there is a positive correlation between child’s age and the time it takes to put him/her to bed, such that the older the child, the longer it takes. Conclusions. The implications of the parent strategies for putting infants to bed on infants’ sleep patterns are discussed. Suggestions for future studies examining broader implications of the results are offered. 1. Introduction Sleep is a normative essential activity. It constitutes separation from familiar people, objects, and activities [1]. Therefore, it might arouse anxiety, feelings of helplessness and frustration. Higley and Dozier [2] review popular parenting literature (e.g., [3]), as well as the research of many pediatricians and psychologists (e.g., [4]) suggesting that parents should teach babies to soothe themselves to sleep by not responding to their cries for attention. These recommendations are based on evidence that parental nighttime interactions (e.g., rocking, feeding, and parental presence) cause and perpetuate sleep problems [5–7]. Higley and Dozier [2] on the other hand, claim that attachment theory suggests that parents should respond quickly and sensitively to infants’ signals (e.g., [8]), thus appearing at odds with the former contemporary advice regarding handling sleep issues. They point out that researchers have not addressed this issue of nighttime responsiveness directly, although daytime responsiveness has been studied extensively. They explain that from an evolutionary perspective, nighttime is associated with a greater likelihood of threatening conditions than daytime [9, 10], thus making the study of the attachment system during nighttime interactions particularly important. Given the
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