Are you planning to bed-share with your new baby in London?

[InfantSleepStudy]

Are you pregnant? Are you planning on sharing a bed with your baby?

If you live in Greater London and are interested in taking part in a research study examining newborn infant sleeping and waking, please read on!

Having a baby who sleeps through the night is an important milestone for many parents. This study aims to understand why some babies acquire this ability by about 12 weeks of age, while others do not. In particular, we want to understand whether infants learn to remain settled at night and what factors in the environment help them to learn.

We are comparing two groups of parents. One group, already recruited, will plan to look after their babies using conventional London approaches to baby-care. The other group, recruited via websites such as mumsnet.com, will plan to share a bed at night with their baby.

The study involves three short home visits by a researcher and keeping a simple diary of your baby?s behaviour for a few days.

In order to accurately measure how your baby is sleeping through the night, during two of these visits we will set up a small video camera where your baby sleeps, to record for two consecutive nights.

Parents who chose to complete the study receive £100 in high street gift vouchers for their time and contribution. All personal details and data collected are kept completely confidential and this study has received ethical approval from the Riverside Research Ethics Committee.

We hope that the findings from this project will help infants and parents alike in the future. We are very happy to explain the project further and answer any queries you may have, either by phone or email.

For further details about the study and how you can get involved, please contact the Infant Sleeping Research Team at the Institute of Education by email: [email protected].

We look forward to hearing from you!