Sleep Disorders in Infancy and Childhood: Literature Review and Psychodynamic Analysis
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Infant’s sleep problems represent one of the most frequent complaints of parents consulting a paediatrician and a psychiatrist. Due to their frequency and family life impact, they are an essential part of infancy functional clinical evaluation. Sleep characteristics develop very quickly over the first few months. The knowledge of their ontogenesis is very important in order to identify “true” sleep disorders from normal maturational sleeping patterns. Infant’s sleep does not boil down to neurophysiologic development alone, it is closely linked to the mother’s caregiving which implies a strong emotional aspect. Sleep disorders appear as parent-infant interactions organize. After an accurate clinical analysis of the symptom, psychopathological assessment consists of exploring parent-infant interactions. In the last years, some authors have observed a higher severity level of sleep problems in even younger children. Many hypotheses exist to explain the origin of these disorders. Sleep disorders represent a very large scale of diverse emotional and conflictual troubles, from the most common to the most severe. The prognosis of these disorders relies mostly on their becoming chronic (continuance or recurrence). The long term clinical impact of insufficient sleep on cognitive development, behaviour and mood regulation is more and more studied. Treatment of infant’s sleep disorders is diversified. Recommendations vary depending on cases and authors. Most often recommendations consist in mother-infant or parent-infant analytic psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioural treatment with interactional guidance or family therapy. In exceptional cases, these may be associated with a pharmacological treatment.
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