Sleep patterns in newborns and temperament at eight months: A preliminary study

The sleep patterns of 41 full-term newborn infants were recorded continuous ly during the first 2 postnatal days. The recordings were made nonintrusive ly using the Motility Monitoring System while the infants were in the hospi tal. When the subjects were 8 months old, their mothers filled out the Infa nt Temperament Questionnaire, which yields scores on nine dimensions of tem perament. There were four significant correlations between Day 1 sleep meas ures and later temperament dimensions; there were eight correlations on Day 2, hardly more than a chance number. The temperament scores were used to c lassify infants as having Easy, Intermediate, Difficult, or Most Difficult temperament. Profiles of sleep measures for the infants in the four groups differed significantly on Day 1, and the Most Difficult infants showed the most extreme values on all measures. Differences in the predictive findings from Day 1 and Day 2 were attributed to the greater influence of the stres s of labor and delivery on the first postnatal day.