CO-MORBIDITY OF CRYING AND FEEDING PROBLEMS WITH SLEEPING PROBLEMS ININFANCY - CONCURRENT AND PREDICTIVE ASSOCIATIONS

The co-morbidity of crying, feeding and sleeping problems at 5 months of age was investigated in a representative sample of 432 infants in S outh Germany. A crying, sleeping or feeding problem was reported in 32 .7% of these infants by their parents and a further 14.6% had two or m ore of these problems. Little comorbidity between crying and feeding p roblems was found. There were moderate to strong associations between crying and sleeping behaviours. Feeding problems showed little relatio nship to sleeping behaviour, but feeding type and frequency of feeds w ere related to night waking. Breastfed infants woke much more often at night. Crying and feeding problems at 5 months were poor predictors o f sleeping behaviour at 20 or 56 months of age. Later sleeping behavio ur was best predicted by infant sleeping behaviour. At 56 months, mate rnal distress due to sleeping and co-sleeping practices was predicted by maternal distress due to crying and feeding practices at 5 months o f age. The predictions were significant but generally weak to modest i n strength. Future studies on the consequences of crying or feeding pr oblems should take into account patterns of co-morbidity. So-called 'p ost-colicky' sleep problems are not due to increased crying per se but rather appear to be the consequence of associated infant sleeping pro blems and parental caretaking patterns for dealing with night waking i n infancy.