Navigating Infant Sleep: Cultural Variations in Co-sleeping and Attachment

Across cultures, infant sleep arrangements reflect deeply held beliefs about emotional security, vulnerability, parental responsibility, and the kind of attachment caregivers hope to cultivate with their children. In the United States, pediatric guidance often promotes solitary infant sleep as a pathway to independence and self-soothing, while in many East Asian, Middle Eastern, and South Asian societies nighttime proximity between caregivers and infants is understood as essential to emotional security and relational attunement. This thesis examines how immigrant families raising children in the United States interpret infant sleep practices and how these interpretations are connected to beliefs about attachment, independence, and moral development. Using an interdisciplinary approach that integrates cross-cultural research on caregiving and attachment with semi-structured clinical interviews, the study analyzes conversations with eight participants from four multigenerational immigrant families of Iranian, Korean, Japanese, and Indian backgrounds. Comparing mothers raising children in the United States with grandmothers whose parenting practices were shaped in their countries of origin reveals how families navigate competing developmental frameworks. Findings show that immigrant mothers rarely adopt either cultural model entirely. Instead, they develop hybrid caregiving practices that preserve emotional closeness while gradually encouraging independence, demonstrating that infant sleep is not simply a behavioral choice but a site where families actively reconcile culturally distinct theories of how children become secure, competent adults.
Keywords: infant sleep, co-sleeping, attachment theory, immigrant families, cultural models of development