A group of researchers are working to help infants and their parents get a better night's rest.

The Rocky Sleep Study is a University of British Columbia School of Nursing study that's being funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. According to the study's principal investigator Wendy Hall, a UBC School of Nursing professor, previous studies have shown that fragmented sleep and shorter sleep duration, both during naps and at night, can be problematic.

"We know that if that persists, it can lead to problems down the road, with behavioural problems, with difficulty with attention, with hyperactivity and now there are some new studies coming out that are linking short sleep trajectories to increased risk of obesity in kids," she says. "I think it's a fairly significant public health problem that hasn't really been addressed in Canada very well."

It's estimated that more than 25 per cent of infants are affected by sleep problems and few public resources currently exist, says Hall. The Rocky Sleep Study, which Hall and her team are currently recruiting for, is intended to address this need by developing an evidence-based approach that can be incorporated into the public health spectrum of services.

Hall's team is currently recruiting 240 families throughout the Lower Mainland. The project is based on a pilot she completed in 2004. Hall worked with 40 families in Vancouver and delivered the intervention herself. "It showed that not only were the children sleeping better after the pilot study but also the parents had a better mood, they had lower depression scores, they had better sleep quality and they had lower levels of fatigue," she says.

The UBC team has partnered with public health nurses, including those on the North Shore, for the project.

"My idea was to develop this study so that not only could we offer an intervention to families in the community where there is very little available for them but also I could train the public health nurses to offer the intervention . . . so that after the study is finished we've got nurses out there who could offer this intervention to families on an ongoing basis."

They're looking for parents with healthy infants who are waking frequently at night between 51/2 and eight months old between now and July.

Participation involves parents attending one of two teaching sessions (focused on safety and sleep) administered by public health nurses, complete a questionnaire, and have their babies wear an actigraph, a special wristwatch, on their ankles for five days. The device will measure sleep patterns, and parents will be asked to keep a diary. Parents will also receive supportive follow-up calls for two weeks. Six weeks and 24 weeks later, they'll be asked to repeat the data collection phase, and complete supplementary questionnaires.

Hall hopes the findings support her argument for the importance of programs of this nature being included in Vancouver Coastal Health's regular programming.

"My hope is that we'd have a legacy from the study to leave parents with a resource that they can find in the community so they're not desperate and not knowing where to turn," she says.

For more information on the study, phone study co-ordinator Kathy Gregg, at 604-822-7480 or visit www.rockysleepstudy.com.