A Proposed Nursing Theory: Infant Sleep and Development.

Although well positioned to work with families of young children, nurses do not yet have a theory that guides practice and research by relating infant sleep to child and family development. The authors of this paper describe a proposed theory that combines Bronfenbrenner's bioecological theory of human development with the Barnard model of parent-child interaction to inform nursing practice and research related to infant sleep and optimizing child and family development. The theory focuses on sustainability of change in family processes and infant sleep, with a goal of optimizing family wellness as the proximal environment for child development.