News stories featuring polarized debates among experts can be very confusing for parents. Dr. Lewis Leavitt, professor of pediatrics, University of Wisconsin and researcher on infant development and parent-infant interaction, described how both infant and parent contribute to the construction of their relationship, which can be called a bond or attachment. This relationship helps foster early infant development and can include multiple caregivers. The optimal development of infants or young children does not require just one special caregiver, according to a recently completed National Institutes of Health Study on Early Child Care. Study results showed that children in a high-quality care environment can retain a positive relationship with their mothers while appropriately developing their cognitive and linguistic skills.
Parents are crucial in giving children a healthy start in the early weeks and months of life.
They remain important as the child's life becomes intertwined with an increasing number of other adults and children. In our work with families, we have found that fussy babies have difficulty tuning out stimuli in their environment, causing them to be overly tired, yet unable to fall asleep. As their sleep-wake cycles become less regular, they are less able to signal why they are crying. The research also showed that fussy babies respond differently to different approaches at different times. Based on these new perspectives, Keefe developed an intervention for parents and infants, called REST, that can help prevent and reduce the amount of crying, reduce parental stress and promote positive parent-infant interactions.