Integrative literature review: sleep patterns in infants attending nurseries.

OBJECTIVE: To identify evidence available in the literature about sleep patterns of infants attending nurseries.

METHOD: An integrative review of studies published in Portuguese, English or Spanish available in full text on LILACS, CINAHL, and PubMed databases. The following descriptors sono, lactente and creches or berçários (in Portuguese) and sleep, infant and childcare or nurseries were used for LILACS, CINAHL and Pubmed, respectively. Nine studies were selected and analyzed.

RESULTS: The main component explored in the studies about sleep pattern is the sleep position of the infants, due to its association with sudden infant death syndrome. The results pointed to the need to promote and develop written guidelines regarding behavioral practices to reduce the risk of this phenomenon.

CONCLUSION: Evidence has identified sleep issues, mainly regarding the sleep position of the infant and the environment where the infant sleeps, showing that it is critical to set routines and interventions to improve the quality of sleep care of infants attending nurseries.