The Cultural Organization of Infants' Sleep

Chisato Kawasaki
Harumi Miyahara
Hiroko Miyashita
Nagasaki University

J. Kevin Nugent
T. Berry Brazelton
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Harvard Medical School

Citation: Kawasaki, Chisato, Harumi Miyahara, Hiroko Miyashita, J. Kevin Nugent and T. Berry Brazelton (1994). "The Cultural Organization of Infants' Sleep." Children's Environments 11 (2): 85-96. Retrieved [date] from http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/

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Abstract

This study examines the relationship between the sleeping environments of Japanese infants and the absence of reports of sleep disturbances in infancy. The sleep environments of a sample of urban (Nagasaki) infants and rural (Goto Islands) infants were described and the Brazelton Scale was used to examine the behavioral repertoire of the infants. The findings reveal that both rural and urban Japanese infants sleep in very close proximity to their parents over the first three years of life. The Brazelton Scale results reveal that Japanese newborns are alert and responsive, show little state lability and are especially able to habituate to negative stimuli when asleep. A cultural-ecological model is presented which argues that the relative absence of sleep disturbances in Japanese infants may be due to a combination of the infants' behavioral pre-disposition to be able to habituate to negative stimuli while asleep on the one hand and a sleeping environment that promotes extensive close physical contact between infants and parents, on the other.

Keywords: Sleep environments, culture, Japan, infancy