Evidence is accumulating that the first six months of life is foundational for establishing trajectories of self-regulation that bear directly on infant and parent socio-emotional health. Regulatory problems such as sleep-wake challenges, feeding issues, and excessive crying during the first half six months have been predictive of behavioral problems (e.g., internalizing/externalizing behaviors) during childhood (Hemmi et al., 2011), as well as parental and overall family distress. Meta-analyses indicate a dose-response between infant regulatory problems and the ability to self-regulate at later points in development, with negative ramifications for both infant and parent (Asmussen et al., 2023).
Interventions in the first 6 months, such as responsive feeding approaches, have been shown to support the positive development of parental feeding practices and routines. These interventions have helped parents recognize cues of distress and non-distress to support infants’ development of feeding-regulation. However, these very early interventions have rarely focused on infant sleep, failed to acknowledge the longitudinal interconnectedness between sleep and eating regulation, and rarely take into consideration family-level influences that can facilitate or impede intervention efficacy.
SIESTA-EASI purports to test the efficacy of a video-based intervention program delivered across the transition to parenthood, using a telehealth platform that will begin prenatally and extend across the first six months post-partum, with follow up at 12 months. The intervention will be adapted around parent-infant interactions during infant sleep and feeding contexts at bedtime and across the night, in a sample of environmentally high-risk families.
This study draws on SIESTA’s 17 years of experience using video to assess infant and parent sleep and bedtime and nighttime parent-infant interactions, including parental emotional availability and observations of parenting practices. It also draws on SIESTA’s intensive and rigorous study of theoretically relevant family-level variables (e.g., prenatal well-being, coparenting quality, and household chaos), each of which will be examined as potential moderators of intervention efficacy.
As was done with SIESTA, we will examine intervention effects using a measurement-burst design, with rigorous, multi-method assessment that includes video, actigraphy and somnography, daily sleep and feeding diaries, and questionnaires.
About the Speaker
Dr. Teti is a developmental scientist whose research is focused on infant and early child development with a long-standing interest in socio-emotional development in early childhood (e.g., quality of attachment to parents), parenting competence and parenting at risk, how parenting is affected by parental mental health and contextual factors, and how parenting affects infant and child functioning. His current projects examine the joint, interactive effects of biological/medical and environmental/parenting factors on child development and parenting during the early years of life.
