SBS 200 Module 2 Prenatal Development, Birth and Infancy Example

Whose Bed, Whose Baby? Infant Sleeping, Attachment and Culture in a Family Argument Across Generations

Student Name

Psychology and Addiction Studies Program, Aspen University

SBS 200: Human Development

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Whose Bed, Whose Baby? Infant Sleeping, Attachment and Culture in a Family Argument Across Generations

When my sister brought her first baby home in Sacramento, she put him in a crib in his own room, as the nurses at the hospital where she works had advised. Our mother, who grew up in a Hmong family where babies always slept beside their mothers, was upset. "He will feel alone," she said. "In my family, nobody sleeps alone, especially a baby." My sister replied that she wanted her son to learn to sleep on his own and that safe-sleep guidance recommends a separate sleep surface. Both of them love the baby, and both believe they are protecting him. This paper uses research on infant development, attachment and culture to understand their disagreement. My family here is a composite, and nothing in this paper is medical advice about infant sleep.

Development in the First Year

Infancy is a period of extraordinary growth. The brain roughly doubles in weight during the first year, sensory abilities sharpen and infants move from reflexes to deliberate actions. Socially, infants learn to recognize their caregivers, smile in response to them and, by about six to eight months, show distress when separated from familiar people. These changes form the foundation of attachment, the enduring emotional bond between an infant and caregiver that, in John Bowlby's theory, provides a secure base from which the child explores the world and a safe haven in times of distress.

Measuring Attachment

Mary Ainsworth designed a short laboratory sequence, the Strange Situation, in which a one-year-old is twice parted from and reunited with a parent in an unfamiliar playroom, at times with a stranger present. Researchers classify infants by their behavior at reunion. Securely attached infants seek comfort and are soothed. Insecure-avoidant infants show little interest in the caregiver. Insecure-resistant infants seek contact but resist comfort. Ainsworth linked secure attachment to sensitive, responsive caregiving.

Where Babies Sleep

Morelli et al. (1992) compared sleeping arrangements of Guatemalan Mayan families and middle-class American families. All the Mayan infants slept in their mothers' beds, usually into toddlerhood, and Mayan parents regarded separating a baby at night as unthinkable, even neglectful. Most American infants slept in separate rooms by around six months, and American parents explained the arrangement in terms of fostering independence and protecting the couple's relationship. The researchers argued that sleeping arrangements expressed deeper cultural values: interdependence and closeness in one community, independence in the other. Neither practice was simply a matter of convenience.

The study helps explain my family's disagreement. My mother's view reflects values of interdependence common in Hmong families, in which a baby's closeness to family is a basic good. My sister's view reflects both the American value of independence and the health guidance she follows at work.

Is Attachment Universal?

If attachment depends on sensitive caregiving, and caregiving differs across cultures, do attachment patterns differ too? A meta-analysis of thirty-two Strange Situation studies from eight countries took up this question (van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg, 1988). In each of the eight countries, more infants were classified as secure than as either insecure type. The proportions of the insecure types varied: avoidant attachment was relatively more common in some Western European samples, and resistant attachment in samples from Israel and Japan. Strikingly, variation within countries was greater than variation between them. The findings supported both a common core and cultural shaping.

Keller (2018) challenged the universality claim more directly. She argued that attachment theory's definitions of sensitive caregiving and secure attachment were based on Western middle-class families, in which an infant interacts mainly with one caregiver who responds to the infant's signals face to face. In many communities around the world, infants are cared for by several people, held and carried much of the day and responded to before they signal distress, and their socioemotional development follows different but healthy paths. Applying a single standard, she argued, risks judging these communities' children and parents as deficient.

Comparing the Two Traditions

Health Guidance and Culture

Safe-sleep guidance from pediatric organizations in the United States recommends that infants sleep on their backs, on a separate firm surface and in the parents' room for at least the first several months, without bed-sharing, to reduce the risk of sudden unexpected infant death. My sister follows this guidance as a nurse. Respecting cultural traditions does not mean ignoring health evidence, but the guidance itself supports closeness: sharing a room keeps the baby near. In the end, my sister moved the crib into her own bedroom, a compromise my mother accepted as keeping the baby close.

What Infants Need Everywhere

Despite the differences, the research points to some needs that appear in every culture studied. Infants need caregivers who are reliably available, who notice their distress and respond, and who provide warmth and protection. How those needs are met varies: in my mother's tradition, through constant closeness and many caregivers; in my sister's, through responsive care from parents within a structure of routines and separate sleep. A useful question for any family is not whether its practice matches another culture's, but whether the baby's signals are noticed and answered and whether the people around the baby can keep it safe and cared for.

Reflection

Before this module, I agreed with my sister and thought my mother's worry was old-fashioned. Reading Morelli and colleagues and Keller changed that. My mother's view reflects values that shaped my own childhood, in which I was rarely alone and always felt surrounded by family. That closeness may be one reason I feel secure today. I also see that my sister's choice is shaped by her culture and her training, not by indifference. Both are pursuing a secure child through the practices their worlds taught them.

Conclusion

My family's argument over where a baby sleeps reflects a larger question in human development: how much of infancy is universal and how much cultural. Morelli and colleagues show that sleeping arrangements express cultural values, van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg find a common secure pattern with wide variation and Keller warns against judging all families by one standard. The compromise my sister and mother reached, closeness within current health guidance, reflects what the research suggests: different paths can lead to secure children.

References

Keller, H. (2018). Universality claim of attachment theory: Children's socioemotional development across cultures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(45), 11414-11419. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720325115

Morelli, G. A., Rogoff, B., Oppenheim, D., & Goldsmith, D. (1992). Cultural variation in infants' sleeping arrangements: Questions of independence. Developmental Psychology, 28(4), 604-613. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.28.4.604

van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Kroonenberg, P. M. (1988). Cross-cultural patterns of attachment: A meta-analysis of the Strange Situation. Child Development, 59(1), 147-156. https://doi.org/10.2307/1130396