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We have a real obsession in Western nations, and I’m not sure it’s a healthy one. We are completely, totally, obsessed with sleep. And not in the “I love sleep” kind of way, but in a much more insidious way. Why? Because we focus the attention of our sleep obsession on those too young to stand up for themselves or to tell us how they really feel and what they really need. So we have tons of parents buying books telling them how to sleep train their children, stressing over every minute of sleep, and generally running around anxious as can be if their child isn’t doing what they think they ought to be, worried that this means something horrid will happen to said child.
If you don’t believe that we have a sleep obsession for our children, go to Amazon and look up “child sleep” in books and you will find 26,135 paperbacks. Although I’m positive not all of them really address sleep “problems” in our young, I would bet a sizeable number of them do. And unfortunately, by addressing sleep problems, we are typically talking about sleep training. To put this in perspective, there are only 14,326 paperbacks that tackle the issue of poverty. There are only 9,990 paperbacks on the topic of racism. And yet, here we have nearly the same number of books on child sleep as poverty and racism put together. Is that really how things ought to be? I think we need to change this. And by this I mean the prevalence of sleep training our infants and our unhealthy obsession with their sleep. To do this we must look at some of the thoughts that lead to such an obsession to understand why they are, well, misguided.
Thought #1: Sleep is so important that we must make sure our children sleep get the recommended amount of sleep at the recommended times.
I’m going against the grain on this one, but while sleep is obviously important, most of the time I would say we need not worry – especially at the beginning. Our children and babies naturally know how to sleep and will sleep if left to their own devices. There will be a small number for which this doesn’t work, and yes we should care when there’s a problem and an infant or child is clearly having problems sleeping and showing signs of being sleep deprived, but most infants are not sleep deprived. There are studies in Western cultures that find high rates of pediatric sleep disorders – upwards of 40%
Thought #2: My child is better off with a parent who is well-rested/I am a much better parent for sleeping through the night.
This is the argument that is typically presented as a reason to sleep train. But you shouldn’t hear this argument and not think about the myriad cultures in which children aren’t sleep trained, parents still work and function, and everyone seems to do pretty well, on average. What is the difference? One could arguably say that co-sleeping has a lot to do with that. In a review of 90 traditional cultures, not a single one had infants sleeping far away from their mothers[4]. Not a single one. In fact, many parents report their amount of sleep and quality of sleep improves greatly when they have their infant either in the room or their bed (remember that co-sleeping is not only bedsharing, but also room-sharing).
There is also more, though. One additional aspect is that this speaks of the total lack of support and community available to parents in today’s Western society. In fact, even in non-Western societies, those that have less frequent community interactions (typically farming tribes) show more similar infant-caregiver patterns and infant behaviours (including crying, fussiness, and distal interactions with the caregiver) to Western societies than those who live in a more tight-knit community[5]. (However, it is notable that their interactions are still far greater than those of the average mother in Western society and they do not complain about infant behaviours, including crying, sleeping, etc., as much as Western mothers.) This is compounded when parents are expected to return to work too early (hello, United States of America). (If you would like to write your State or Federal representative on this, we have a downloadable letter, filled with research, for you here. Just fill in the needed representative information, sign it, and send it off.)
But really, the issue of are you a better parent is a little weird to me. Do you feel a bit better if you get 8 hours sleep? Yep, I bet you do. Are you a better parent? That depends – do you think your child needs you at night? If not, then yes. If you believe that being a parent is a 24-hour job, then perhaps not. Perhaps at some points you are a better parent, but at others you would become demonstrably worse (i.e., when you are “teaching” your child by ignoring his or her needs). There is also the question of comparison. If a certain level of missed sleep is the norm for parenting, then why would we consider it “bad”? If that missed sleep ensures we are more in sync with our child and his or her state, then wouldn’t we be giving that up? So we have to decide what we’re comparing this to. (And remember, we’re not talking about severe sleep deprivation – that is something altogether different – but rather the typical loss of sleep that accompanies parenting. If you are suffering severe sleep deprivation or post-partum depression, you should seek medical help and familial support. And while severe sleep deprivation is serious, it is beyond the scope of this current piece.)
Thought #3: Sleep training is the only alternative in our society when parents are sleep deprived and still need to work.
Yes, there will be people for whom the sleep deprivation is so bad that something needs to be done – as just stated above. I won’t deny that. I believe you are a minority, though, and many others cling to this notion because it’s convenient, not because it’s true. But I also believe people feel they need to do something because it seems like night wakings simply won’t end. Our complete lack of understanding of basic infant physiology means that we expect far too much from them and get unbelievably frustrated, depressed, and helpless when they don’t behave the way we want. So first, I recommend a crash-course in what you really should expect from your infant. (Hint: sleeping through the night at 3 months is not it.)
That said, there is research that suggests a heightened risk of negative maternal mood associated with “poor” infant sleep which serves as a risk factor for maternal depression and family stress[6]. Now, I will not advocate that parents should simply accept depression and greater stress, but I don’t think sleep training really helps matters either. When one actually looks at the studies on sleep training, they come across as rather ineffective (despite your friend or neighbour swearing it’s so great it might as well cure cancer)[7]. And in fact, a larger-scale study suggests that simply implementing a bedtime routine without any behavioural interventions for infants can have significant positive effects for the sleep of the baby and the parents’ well-being[8]. In fact, routines that are designed with the particular infant in mind can be incredibly successful for everyone involved.
There’s also this little practice called co-sleeping. You may want to check it out.
Thought #4: Night wakings are considered sleep disorders thus they must be bad.
Sadly you can read a lot about sleep “problems” like night wakings and nursing or rocking to sleep (see [1]) which serve to make parents feel anxious and nervous about their own behaviour surrounding a sleeping child. But historically, this behaviour was never seen as anything but normal. And it remains that way in cultures around the world and is actually normal in our own culture. A reminder that a review of 90 traditional societies found that not in a single one are infants and parents separated for sleep or experience sleep training as we do it[4] and approximately 40% of children in our own culture regularly wake during the night for the first few years[1][9]. While some will argue that our society is not the same as a traditional one, that ignores the fact that infant biology and physiology are the same. So if left to their own devices, infants seem to expect to be able to wake during the night, stay close to parents, and breastfeed at length (which means breastfeeding during the night too). Folks – THAT is what is normal. Not bad, normal.
Thought #5: We have the privilege of living in a society that CAN worry about sleep and so we can do better for our children.
I actually think this is flat-out wrong. I’ve seen children’s sleep referred to as a first-world problem but I would argue it’s a first-world screw-up. We’ve over-analyzed it, for one, but we’ve also created a society that is less amenable to sleep than traditional ones. We’re not in any privileged position here, but rather a worse one. And in turn, I don’t think we’re doing “better” for our kids. I think we’re doing worse.
Beyond being normal, there are also reasons to believe that these night wakings can be beneficial to infants and even older children. First, as hypothesized by James McKenna, night wakings may help prevent SIDS[10], they are necessary for cue-feeding given the size of an infant’s stomach[11], and may even be an evolutionary adaptation to ensure someone is close by and caring for the infant, ensuring his or her survival. Yet sleep “experts” and some sleep researchers are so focused on the need for an infant to sleep through the night, they ignore the evidence that talks about the benefits of waking. Second, night wakings are intricately related to breastfeeding on cue, which is the biological norm for infants and children, and thus if a child is waking or rousing to nurse (with breastfeeding’s ability to save lives[12]), they are actually getting something very positive from it. Finally, for some children, sleep training creates problems down the line. Parents report that their children at older ages fear sleeping, don’t feel safe, resist bedtime, etc. and many of these parents attribute it to their early sleep training providing anxiety surrounding sleep for their children.
As to the idea that we’re doing better… have you seen the rates of sleep problems in adults in our society? We have over-the-counter sleep aides, prescription pills, sleep clinics, psychiatrists who specialize in sleep problems (and have thriving practices), pills that help you stay asleep, and the list goes on. According to WebMD, “Sleep problems… are common among millions of Americans”. According to the US National Sleep Foundation, 40 million Americans suffer from a chronic sleep disorder. 40 million. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d believe that we were intentionally screwing up sleep early to ensure that we have enough patients for doctors and pharmaceutical companies alike. That would be the easy thing to think. But I don’t actually believe that.
Doctors and “experts” have been telling parents to leave children to cry to learn to sleep for at least a couple generations, and yet this is what we have. At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, if all this sleep training were really helping kids develop proper sleep habits, shouldn’t we have a society of great sleepers instead of the opposite? So ditch the misguided thoughts, educate yourself on what normal infant behaviour is, and embrace the crazy that comes with being a parent.
[1] Meltzer LJ, Mindell JA. Sleep and sleep disorders in children and adolescents. Psychiatric Clinics of North America 2006; 29: 1059-1076.
[2] Hiscock H, Wake M. Infant sleep problems and postnatal depression: a community-based study. Pediatrics 2001; 107: 1317-1322.
[3] Loutzenhiser L, Ahlquist A, Hoffman J. Infant and maternal factors associated with maternal perceptions of infant sleep problems. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 2011; 29: 460-471.
[4] Diamond J. The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn From Traditional Societies? New York, NY: Viking (2012).
[5] Hewlett BS, Lamb ME, Shannon D, Leyendecker B, Scholmerich A. Culture and early infancy among Central African foragers and farmers. Developmental Psychology 1998; 34: 653-661.
[6] Sadeh A, Tikotsky L, Scher A. Parenting and infant sleep. Sleep Medicine Reviews 2010; 14: 89-96.
[8] Mindell JA, Telofski LS, Weigand B, Kurtz ES. A nightly bedtime routine: impact on sleep in young children and maternal mood. Sleep 2009; 32: 599-606.
[9] Weinraub M, Bender RH, Friedman SL, Susman EJ, Knoke B, Bradley R, Houts R, Williams J. Patterns of developmental change in infants’ nighttime sleep awakenings from 6 through 36 months of age. Developmental Psychology 2012; 48: 1511-1528.
[10] McKenna JJ, Thoman EB, Anders TF, Sadeh A, Schechtman VE, Glotzbach GT. Infant-parent co-sleeping in an evolutionary perspective: Implications for understanding infant sleep development and the sudden infant death syndrome. Sleep 1993; 16: 263-282.
[11] https://gku.flm.mybluehost.me/evolutionaryparenting.com/bed-sharing-and-co-sleeping-research-overview/
[12] Bartick, Melissa, and Arnold Reinhold. The Burden of Suboptimal Breastfeeding in the United States: A Pediatric Cost Analysis. Pediatrics 2009; 125: 1048-56.
I think we have so many adults (and teens) with issues not only because of unhealthy early sleep, but because American society encourages unnatural sleep patterns for all ages and encourages sleeping alone. Nearly all pre industrial societies break their sleep up between night time sleep and day time sleep. Getting 6 hours a night is enough, if you’re getting a 2 hour ‘seista’ in the afternoon. Naps are good! Expecting humans, of any age, to get 8 hours in one block simply isn’t born up by historical norms. If you only expect to get 6 hours at night, then baby waking after 4 to nurse, then sleeping for another two (which is the best I ever got from my 3 kids) is well within the norm, but that means mom should be sleeping another 2 hours during baby’s/kids afternoon nap.
Love^^^^^ my son slept in 20 minute increments unil 3-4 months. for maybe a total of 8 hours a day. we briefly tried cry it ou due to sheer insanity ( like one afternoon and i felt so terrible you couldnt even pay me to go to the basement to do laundry with out my boyafter that. I swear my ex hub and i were crazy with sleep deprivation but then between 3-4 months he just figured out sleepingand slept 46 hours at a stretch. . excluding oiur one day tril he always slept in out bed or in our room. my next LO came home sleeping 5 hours straight at night. she would wake to nurse the sleep for anohter 2 maybe 3 hours. It didn’t occur to me that there was anytthing wrong I jusgt breastfed, co-slept, and made it up as a went along.
My babies told me what was normal that was a max of 5-6 hours sleep at night. Just watch the babies. I once tried reading dr spocks book and was so astonished by the wrong info that i began to use it to stabalize a piece of furniture whose foot had come off. After that i never read any other baby care books.
I so feel you…my son didn’t sleep for more than 20 minutes in a stretch for the first five months, and it was a special kind of hell. Even those little increments only happened when we held him, too. We had to take shifts…I held him from 7PM (when my husband went to bed) until 4Aam (when he got up), and I got to sleep from 4 to 7:30 – which for me was an incredible amount of sleep. He turned two today and still wakes once or twice per night, but given how it started out, we’re blissful with the sleep we get. The downside is that we’re terrified of having another baby, for fear that it will be the same. Our marriage almost ended over it before, and couldn’t handle it again. Your comment gives me hope that another baby would have better sleep habits.
Lauren- between a windy baby, cat naps and multiple wake ups at night, I completely empathise with you. We also are unsure whether we will have another baby as we just don’t want to relive it again. We would like go keep our marriage intact. My son is 19 months and I can’t wait for the day when he only wakes once or twice a night.
I had the same fear.
My son was the exact same way.
My 2nd child slept through the night from day one. She’s the type of baby that started the vicious rumors that it was normal. 😛
Totally agreed and there is a fair amount of evidence that siestas help us cognitively during the day as well. Sometimes I just shake my head and wonder how the heck we got here…
Funny, I just wrote a couple of posts about how sleep deprivation (among other aspects of motherhood) has escorted me into a state of depression. My almost 8 month old is up every 2 hours all night long and I cannot yet get my 2 year old’s nap to sync up with my infant’s naps so I don’t get a break during the day.
As to cosleeping, I’ve tried. My infant seems to think that if I’m sleeping near her, it’s playtime. She simply won’t relax and fall asleep if I’m in the room (in bed with her or not).
I suppose I’m in the minority for which some sort of sleep training would be beneficial but my little one somehow manages to cry/fuss/talk on and off for HOURS if I let her! She’ll whine for a few minutes and then quiet down, then cry for a minute, then talk to herself and then she’ll be quiet for half an hour and on and on and on, unless I nurse her and give her a snuggle and say “goodnight” all over again… every 1.5-2 hours. all.night.long.
Anyway, I really appreciate your post because it drives me crazy when our generations parents say that they cried it out and they let us cry it out and we all turned out great because I could argue till I’m blue that we are all FAR FROM GREAT, as you have stated here.
So, thanks ; )
Amanda,
It does sound like you’re in the minority there – I’m so sorry 🙁 Depression is never a good thing, but it’s far worse when there are children to be cared for. Have you tried the No Cry Sleep Solution? I personally haven’t read it but a lot of people swear by it. It’s gentle, can take a while, but many say it worked for them without crying it out or any kind of non-gentle method.
I admit if you could co-sleep, you’d be the perfect candidate. My daughter has nights where she nurses every 2 hours still, but she doesn’t wake to do it, she just rolls over and latches. Sometimes I wake, sometimes not. I imagine I’d be in your shoes if I didn’t sleep with her.
Regardless, good luck and I think it’s wonderful that even in all this, you can still see the inherent value in not leaving your children to cry for you with no response.
Cheers,
Tracy
This is very interesting. The author highlights statistics from Amazon on the number of books about sleep (somewhere in the range of 20000) stating that there are far more books on sleep then there are on poverty or racism- true to an extent of course. But what is ironic is that here we have the author peddling yet another article on sleep, using numerous studies in support of a particular point of view. We could say that this is a typical white, middle class concern – something that the author shares with a lot of worried middle class parents. I mention class and race because as someone working in academia on some of these issues it is always funny to see how white guilt often comes out in the form of extra-worry about racism- but in all the wrong places. Furthermore, the author keeps on using the term ‘traditional societies/cultures’ what exactly is meant by that? Often in the lingo of white, western middle class person it conjures up bucolic visions of mothers carrying their babies in pouches on their backs etc. etc. What this vision fails to encompass is its innate racism! Traditional cultures – if I understand the use of the term correctly in this article have been long eradicated by the western colonialism and more recently corporatism. The fact that we here enjoy are middle class lives, write blogs about every possible topic in the world, experiment and think about baby food and other things is possibly only on the backs of people that, if I understood the use of the word here, live traditional lives. Where are these people? Traditional cultures (or cultures of 200, 300 or more years ago) had a mortality rare far greater than ours – both for adults and for children. My great grandmother had to have 9 children in order for 4 of them to survive into adulthood. Children and adults use to die of simple cut etc. etc. Furthermore, we cannot force ‘traditional lifestyles’ onto an industrial and even post-industrial (I would cal it cybernetic) world. Parents are working because we are forced! When we talk about poverty some parents have to work night shifts, weird hours for very small pay and are tired so sleep is absolutely necessary. Of course it is important. Post-partum depression is not only a thing of chancing hormones but also related to sleep – as of course you will undoubtedly know that are hormones are also regulated while sleeping. So you tell a working-poor mom who has lousy health coverage, a month-long maternity and no security “sorry if you really want to be a good mother you should not expect to sleep, you should co-sleep, and let your kid do what they want as it is natural” No it is not natural to work at night or weird hours but Western, especially American social system is not made to be compassionate towards the poor. So instead of selling more texts about what traditional societies used to do, you should fight for social justice, fight for free child care, free health care, better women’s and children’s healthcare support, for free education at all levels, living wages (not Walmart wages!) Everything else is just yet another empty blahblah that sounds condescending while pretending to actually care about poverty and racism!
1) I don’t “sell” anything – the entire site is written and done for free.
2) I do fight for those things in my daily life and have a letter for paid Maternity leave in the USA (I’m not in the USA).
3) Even with all that, I feel there are alternatives that need to be supported and promoted before we get to telling families they should or have to use CIO. It’s why I wrote this piece: https://gku.flm.mybluehost.me/evolutionaryparenting.com/are-we-setting-up-parents-to-sleep-train/
4) Re traditional cultures – they do still exist (not to the degree they should and there are immense problems, as I’m well aware of living in Canada where we have many Native tribes), in fact it’s how we’ve managed to glean information on how we lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. Is their life perfect? No. I wouldn’t want to go back to days of being attacked by wild animals, dying of disease or injury without medical help, but none of that means we have to ignore the basics of infant physiology and how we evolved with our children to care for them. Understanding the link between parent and child (specifically mother and child given history) means understanding how it’s applicable and what elements are not applicable.
5) Sometimes getting people to care about the larger injustices starts with making them care about something closer to home. I have met people that didn’t consider wages or hours until realizing the effect on parenting. However we make these things relevant, we have to make them relevant. This is one way of doing it. I would never suggest it’s the only way or that others shouldn’t also fight for these things for any number of reasons, but this is one way of making it relevant.
My baby used to get all “hyper” before sleep, but eventually she clued in to my sleeping clues. Does she get energized before sleep because she has developed a habit of knowing she has to start crying because you are going to leave her? If so that is an ingrained biological response that every baby has to survive. I used to nurse my baby to sleep. I don’t even know what all this sleep deprivation stuff was because I co-sleeped. It was the best decision I ever made!!!
So what do you do when you can no longer co-sleep? Our LO is in a bassinet right next to our bed and she is about to grow out of it – she is way too long for it and just 3 months old now. We cannot share a bed as there is no way to safely do that with our tiny bedroom configuration, plus my husband smokes, so that is out! There is no space in our room for any type of crib, barely enough room for the bassinet as it is.
I breastfed our LO until just this week when I went back to work. I exclusively breastfed her until 12 weeks and yet she started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks with NO sleep training. She just never woke up/wakes up from 9pm until 7 am…I woke up (and still do) several times a night to check her to be sure she’s breathing, but how do you explain an exclusively breastfed infant NOT waking up for feedings at night? Yes, I think she gets plenty during the day and did a lot of cluster feeding when she was nursing…just not sure why she didn’t/doesn’t wake up.
And we have never had to use any “sleep training” methods or CIO, etc. But, what does a parent do when the child can’t sleep in the same room anymore?
We will have to put her in her crib in her tiny “nursery” room soon and I am hoping she continues to sleep well, meaning she is getting good rest. I don’t care if she wakes up a few times, I’ll deal with it!
I just cringe when I read about folks who only believe in co-sleeping when it so obviously does not fit safely within every family – especially those who don’t have a big house or lots of space to set up a safe co-sleeping environment!
And I truly believe that if all moms could stay at home and not have to work, there would be no worries about infant sleep. I know I would care less!
Jo, first I would ask if you can use a co-sleeper which is around the same size as a bassinett and attaches to the side of the bed. What others do, if a child doesn’t transition well, is move a mattress to the room where the baby is and mom and baby co-sleep (as long as mom doesn’t smoke). But if you truly can’t co-sleep at all (which is very rare – families do it when they all live in one-room places; it’s our modern lives and expectations of how things must be that make it hard) then you do have to do what you have to do. I agree that work – especially early return to work – compounds the problem (why I have the letter to representatives to try and get US mothers an appropriate mat leave).
But the short of it is that it doesn’t take a lot of space to set up a safe co-sleeping environment. In fact, one could argue you need less space for co-sleeping than to give a child/infant his/her own room.
Good luck!!!
I really needed to read this. My 15 month-old wakes every 2 hours or so at night. We bed-share and I wake up frequently. For the longest time I worried about her getting adequate sleep for developmental reasons. And I was stressing myself over how many times she woke up that night, how to get her to sleep better, what am I doing wrong, etc. Finally I stopped caring. Stopped looking at the clock when she woke up and simply nurse her when she wakes up, and we both go back to sleep. I’m still tired, but I’m not stressed. And I can enjoy my daughter more now that I am not freaking out over her sleep.
Heather – that’s exactly what I hope parents can get from this. I sometimes feel that for many parents the anxiety is actually worse than the sleep deprivation!
While I agree with what you’re saying (do you hear a ‘but’ coming ha!) I think that whenever one espouses one’s ‘way’ as the ideal and everything else inferior, you’re alienating a lot of people.
I do not like the way you glibly speak about the mother’s mental health (but I guess people who don’t have mental health issues tend to not ‘get it’) and I also don’t like how you claim that co-sleeping is the best for everyone. It’s not, sorry. This is America where about 35% of adults are obese, and 19% are smokers.
With that said, I do think that we have a catastrophe on our hands here in America- it’s not just unrealistic expectations of infants to sleep a lot through the night, but for adults to not need a lot of sleep and be overworked. Somehow your articles seems to be playing into that because you acknowledge that we don’t have proper support, maternity leave and child friendly work places but somehow we must tough it out?
For me personally, I bed share with my 9 month old but I am lucky to have a king sized bed, an awesome husband and a baby that doesn’t mind mommy hogging the covers. My baby wakes up to nurse every 3-4 hrs so for me it’s easy to let her nurse and we both fall asleep. (There is no earthly way a working mom can exclusively breast feed and not co sleep in some form.)
You are very fortunate to have a king-size bed! Lucky you 🙂 I mean that.
I don’t think that Tracy ever says co-sleeping is best for absolutely everyone. I tend to think that a lot of people in Western societies think co-sleeping is a bad habit, is bad for the parents’ relationship, is too dangerous, and the list goes on. It sounds like co-sleeping has worked well for you, and it’s great that EP is promoting all of its benefits to others who may be wondering how they can help their whole family get more sleep without leaving the littlest member to cry. So maybe with more resources like EP, who focus on practices like co-sleeping, more mothers, fathers, and babies can enjoy better sleep. I know this site is one that helped me when I was wondering if I was making the right decision for my family when we decided to bed-share with our baby.
Thank you – you’ve addressed most of what I was going to say 🙂 I do think co-sleeping is great, but obviously it’s not for everyone, but far too many people dismiss it outright and so we need to discuss it more.
Danielle – as for the bigger problems, I hope to address those too. Why I created the maternity leave letter for people to mail and sign. We DO need to change things from the ground up and I hope to help in that process to the best of my ability.
Danielle,
Breathemomma handled some of what I wanted to say, but I want to address the mental health issue. I am certainly not meaning to be glib. I suffered depression for years and took years of treatment so I do “get it”; however, I believe there is a time and place for it. I mentioned it herein only to make it clear that this was NOT referring to cases of mental health but the general population of parents. To get into the intricacies and individual circumstances that surround PPD is something that was beyond the scope of this particular post. Hopefully that clarifies.
Cheers,
Tracy
While I do agree with most of the advice and concepts you present on this site (we try and live a primal lifestyle) – I find the manner in which you do so offensive. I came here to get information, not to find someone on a rant calling people uneducated and ignorant (not just this article). I can appreciate witty writing and the lack of PC sensitivity is not what offend me. As a first time mother suffering from PPD I will get the information I seek from a much kinder source.
Krystal,
My goal on this site is to provide information. I’m amused to hear the word “rant” as that is hardly what these posts are, but people will read into them with their own experiences and I can’t prevent that. But I admit that if you’re looking for someone to tell you everything you’ve done is perfect, this isn’t the site for you. I believe parents need to educate themselves and then make decisions that best suite their families. Once you do that, no one can make you feel lesser.
Good luck finding a source that better suits your needs!
Tracy
Im not looking for reassurance that Im doing everything perfect. But I certainly dont need someone who aims to improve parenting telling me Im wrong, misguided, uneducated, or ignorant. As I said I agree with your message but chose the word rant because of how you go about getting your message across. To each their own but unless you only want to start a conversation with those who already share your views – you get more bees with honey.
You are one of the first to even suggest such terms and to take it as a personal attack. But to each his or her own, right? For this particular piece, I’ve had tons of positive feedback from parents who suddenly felt quite reassure that their infants were in fact, normal, and that their anxiety did not need to be happening. So it is reaching parents who do not necessarily share my views, but of course it won’t have the same feel for everyone.
Again, though, we all bring things to the table when we read an article or site and I acknowledge this site won’t be for everyone! Good luck finding information you seek in a format that’s more appealing for you!
Have you read the book “Bringing up Bebe?” about French parenting? (yes, I know, yet ANOTHER parenting book). I read it, and have been trying the French sleeping method, and it’s working with my 7 week old. It’s not sleep training (in fact, the author tells how her French pediatrician was horrified when sleep training was explained to him). What it is is listening and following the rhythms of the child while teaching them to connect sleep cycles. What the French do is when they hear their infant make noise in the night, they pause to listen to what the child is telling them. Often times, they’re just telling their parent that they’re rousing from a sleep cycle, and French parents have learned that if they leave their child alone, then they’ll go back to sleep. If their child is hungry, then they’ll start fussing, and that’s when the parent will pick up the child and feed him/her. They don’t leave their child to cry it out, but by not interfering when the child is simply rousing from a sleep cycle, they teach the child to connect the cycles together and most French infants end up sleeping through the night at 3-4 months. I’ve been using this method with my 7 week old, and I have been getting 6-7 hour stretches between feedings at night, with the first feeding being around 3-4 a.m. I love it because I’m not meant to let my child fuss, I’m just listening to what he’s telling me he needs.
A lot of people do that – it’s simply taking a moment to see if it’s a sleep noise, a minor rouse, or something more. I’m certainly not against that at all 🙂 Even with that though, there will be infants who do not sleep through early, but who will take time. I did that with my daughter (taking the moment even though she was right next to me as we bedshare) but she didn’t sleep through for a while. And still night feeds, but does it without waking most times 🙂 She’s 2 1/2.
Ms. Druckerman’s advice is sound and I enjoyed her book, but I live in France and our babies do not sleep through the night. And the general advice is to use CC or CIO. Perhaps there is some small success with the ‘listening’ advice, but it isn’t working for my neighbor whose 20 month old wakes screaming several times a night (she refuses to co-sleep with him for fear of creating a bad habit).
That’s great to know Breathemomma! I do support the taking a moment to listen, and glad to know that the myriad experiences of women like me who do that and still don’t have kids who sleep through the night isn’t a geographical phenomenon. (I had also heard that France was very into sleep training, but I can’t remember the source so didn’t want to bring it up as I may have hallucinated it!)
With my first baby, I was fairly obsessed with sleep. I coslept but I was always keeping score in terms of how long he slept, how many times he woke, etc. With the second and the third, I cosleep, I don’t have a clock in the bedroom, and I don’t count night wakings. It really helps me not to get too crazy about baby’s sleep. Just do what works. I am not sure how many times he wakes, not sure how long of a stretch we get, but it doesn’t really matter. If we have a tough night and I am tired, I try to sleep late or catch a nap or get to bed early the next night. And our 2.5 and 4.5 year olds still wake at night and come into our room/bed at some point (often close to morning). Again, we have quit keeping score, and it is no big deal.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I took a big breath of fresh air after reading this. I felt like a crazy person trying to sleep train when in my gut I felt it was wrong. Our daughter found her way into our bed at 4 months(out of my sheer exhaustion) against my better judgement and at 8 months is still there. I only wanted to give her the best possible sleep I could as a parent. My heart said she sleeps better with us but my head said daddy moves alot in the night. What to do? Well she’s there now and will be till she lets us know that she is no longer comfortable…………………………I just hope she’s not 20 when that happens.
I’m so glad this helped 🙂 And if she’s 20, you will have set a record so I wouldn’t worry too much about that! If she’s sleeping better and you’re sleeping better (and not anxious), then everyone wins, right? I’m so glad you found something that works for you AND now know that there is research and history backing you up 🙂
This was absolutely wonderful. My son is six now and he was what society would deem “a horrible sleeper” until he was what, like, four? What I noticed about him — even when he was barely two and not sleeping solid by any means — is that he ENJOYED bedtime. It was a positive thing for him, something he looked forward to. When he started to get sleepy, he would grab my hand and lead me to his room saying, “Bed. Bed.”
Bedtime didn’t mean being left alone in the dark to him. Bedtime meant snuggling with Mama and reading books together; it meant lying down and feeling safe; it meant peace at the end of the day. It broke my heart to see friends’ kids stall and cry at bedtime, because I knew that these children had been forced to CIO at 2-4 months old and the night had never meant anything but darkness and loneliness.
This article didn’t come at a time in my son’s life where sleep was an issue, but you can apply the same principles to any aspect of parenting: try to remember that they’ve only existed a short while. Their little selves need you — and there is nothing as important in their lives as feeling like you are there for them to hold on to (literally or figuratively) when they need you.
To add, I was one of the exceptions — I had post-partum depression and had to seek help for it, in addition to having life-long issues with insomnia. Honestly, embracing co-sleeping as just being “what we do” instead of a temporary fix while we look for a solution was the most key part of getting better. I got sleep, our breastfeeding relationship remained intact (nearly two years), he got lots of snuggles, and although never sleeping through the night was still very frustrating at times (I won’t pretend otherwise), the impact was minimized.
Even those who are an exception can still benefit from a close examination of what really works for their baby and their family.
I have only come across this website today, and think it is fantastic!!! Talk about realistic? Its just made me realise why do we expect so much, especially from our tiny beautiful babies? My beautiful baby girl is 10 weeks today and wakes twicw a night for feeds which I am more than happy with and know I am lucky with that, if she woke 5 times I wouldn’t mind because she goes back to sleep straight away. But some people expect babies to sleep through at this age? I won’t lie I can’t wait for it to happen of course but I won’t force her! She woke last night for an extra feed at 4.30am and at first I thought like the french I’ll just see if she really needs a feed or is just fussing? I left her to long to the point where she started crying which she never does in the night so won’t be doing that again! She reall did need another feed and I’m not going to start worrying if this is going to start happening every night as it crossed my mind at 4.30 this morning! Shame on me ! If it is every night so be it, it will only be for a short while until she doesn’t need it. I have also started bringing her into my bed when she wakes at 6.30 as we both get another hours sleep all snuggled which has been on my mind if I am doing the right thing-heart says yes-head(or should I say baby books I have read recently -that is spoiling the baby and they will come to expect it for the whole night) says no. This wonderful has really reassured me I am doing the right thing listening to my babies needs and following my heart-Thank you
This article on the BBC website makes interesting reading in conjunction with what you are saying here. The research it is reporting on essentially says that it’s not normal for anyone to sleep eight hours straight.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783
Ray, Funny you should mention that as the Normal Infant Sleep post Part 2 I just posted this week cites that very research 🙂
Read enough to reject these premises on their face. It's not logical and the responses to the objections fall short of satisfactory. Another far out theory that has been rejected in the past. Quantity and quality is based on individual need but studies show that children require more sleep and adults should have no less than 7 hours on average and no more that 8 hours. The abilty to function mentally and physically as well as spiritually depend on adequate rest and sleep. We rest on the Sabbath, don't we? We need to rejuvinate ourselves. A sort of replenishment our batteries. Any parent that encourages from an early age their children continuously sleeping with them is asking for trouble. Children become dependent on parental presence to sleep. It should also be noted that the marriage may be adversely affected when children occupy the marital bed. My opinion based on research and personal experience.
Robert, actually your view is not supported by research. In fact, we do address the research on marital quality in a later post, but when co-sleeping is intentional, there is no adverse effect on marital quality. Of course people need enough sleep, but the question of what that is and whether infants are getting enough is the premise. And parents are not asking for trouble by co-sleeping, there is ample evidence against that point of view despite one’s personal experience.
Robert, actually your view is not supported by research. In fact, we do address the research on marital quality in a later post, but when co-sleeping is intentional, there is no adverse effect on marital quality. Of course people need enough sleep, but the question of what that is and whether infants are getting enough is the premise. And parents are not asking for trouble by co-sleeping, there is ample evidence against that point of view despite one’s personal experience.
Interesting stuff….
This is purely one woman's opinion. Though she has thrown a few random facts in here, don't be fooled. It's someone's opinion. It's someone saying "This is what I did. This is what I feel we should all do." I think articles like this are so dangerous for new mothers. Read with caution.
[…] know that many of the AP parents out there decrying sleep training mean well, and their hearts just break at the thought of a baby calling out for his parents. […]
[…] While some will argue that our society is not the same as a traditional one, that ignores the fact that infant biology and physiology is the same. So if left to their own devices, infants seems to expect to be able to wake during the night, stay close to parents, and breastfeed at length (which means breastfeeding during the night too). Folks – THAT is what is normal. Not bad, normal. Read it here. […]
Ok, I have to say something. First of all, every baby, family, and family situation is different.
My baby girl was born to sleep. She LOVES to sleep (so does her mama). I expected her to sleep in her bassinet next to me in bed until she was at least 4 months old-but at 5 weeks I had just finished nursing her and changing her, and I laid her in her crib so I could wash my hands and when I came
Back she was asleep. Ever since then she has happily slept in her crib. That being said I still read healthy sleep habits happy child because I knew nothing about baby/newborn sleeping patterns-I needed a general idea as to how much sleep she needed so I wouldn’t inadvertently exhaust her. I did not know about a good bedtime routine either-which she also really enjoys (I am by no means insinuating that i have a perfect baby-we had the HARDEST time breast feeding and she had a severe dairy allergy). I purchased
The book because I needed information, and I got it. We fortunately never had to sleep train her but if it came down to it I would have. I had severe ppd (which is worsened by lack of sleep) and I am an RN so if I go to work on 2 hours of sleep, I could seriously harm someone. It would also be harmful for us to co-sleep because I thrash, kick, and roll in bed-so for our situation the risks outweighed the benefits.
This brings me to the point that EVERY SINGLE family, situation, background, etc etc is so different that I think that any “one size or style fits all” attitude towards parenting doesn’t work. I believe that in religion there are many paths to God-and with parenting there are many paths to the well adjusted child. It seems to me that if mothers were more supportive and encouraging of each other-to find the best fit for their child and family there would be a lot fewer “mommy wars”
I have many friends who co-sleep and chose not to “sleep train” and I respect them as wonderful caring and dedicated mothers-and on the flip side I have mommy friends who chose to sleep train and utilize the crib, and they are also loving dedicated mothers.
The trap that we often fall into is we assume that our way is *right* and discount how other women deal with issues of sleep deprivation, etc. I really wish that we as mothers could just be loving and supportive to each other as opposed to judgmental and flippant about each others personal situation and emotional state. Sadly I did feel a very “my way or the highway” vibe from this article-and a discount towards other mothers situations.
And child is different
Thank you for this perspective, Heather. I’ve read many of these kinds of articles and the comments – from both sides of the issue – and this is the first time I’ve ever felt prompted to comment myself. I think you’ve articulated so clearly the respect and understanding between mothers that would be so helpful and healthy.
And it’s not just about mothers being different and handling sleep deprivation and their situations differently. Babies are different!
The point of this article is to espouse the idea that night waking is normal for infants, and to combat the misguided perception that babies should not be expected to sleep through the night. For mothers who struggle with this, I can see that this message is very freeing. I get it.
However, what happens for some of us is the exact opposite. We have babies who slept through the night; who were naturally wired that way and weren’t forced or trained through being left to cry alone for hours (or even minutes) in the dark. Who were exclusively breastfed and always offered to nurse when they awoke at night. Who were rocked until they were drowsy or dropped off. But when I read articles like this, I start to wonder if there’s something with my son who has always been a naturally good sleeper. I worry that because he doesn’t wake up during the night he might die of SIDS. I worry that there’s something wrong with him developmentally because he has slept for more than 6 hour stretches since he was 2 months old.
The problem with speaking in such absolutes, even just in the implication that sleeping through the night as an infant isn’t healthy, is that someone is going to be polarized and inadvertently caused to worry.
I’m all for presenting something you believe in strongly, but it’s always smart to include the caveat that all babies and mothers are different and may not even adhere to the published research. Research is still just a sampling that recognizes trends, not an absolute that will apply to every single infant.
I give up!!!!
It is Impossible to read your articles!! Hard on my eyes! Ridiculous!
How do all of you manage to read the articles without resorting to a magnifiying glass?
Please please please change the settings so I can read these articles comfortably!
I think the issue is at your end – you need to change your browser settings!
[…] you. Thank you. Thank you to Tracy G. Cassels of Evolutionary Parenting for writing this exceptional post about parental sleep obsession. I hope you all will read it too. Then, I hope you will share your […]
I’d like to add one more thought to this great article. I’ve given sleeptraining courses to adults. A big contribution to sleep problems is actually the focus on sleep. Sleep is all about letting go, so by focussing on sleep you’re actually getting less sleep. Baby’s, attuned to their parents feelings, might actually be getting less sleep wen parents are very focused on their baby getting enough sleep. Baby’s who can take a nap strapped to mom or lying beside her while her attention is elswhere may drift away more easily.
This is nonsense to justify raising overly needy, whiny, undisciplined children. “Traditional” cultures (whatever that means) couldn’t really comport to these norms. You think our evolutionary ancestors dealt with children up all hours of the night whenever they wanted to be? No, ma’am.
Joann, actually many cultures do accept night wakings as completely normal. But often Traditional cultures don’t/didn’t have to because they sleep close meaning children feel safe and secure, they breastfeed on demand (including night feedings) which allows infants and young children to nurse back to sleep, and they accept that there are reasons for wakings.
And FYI, how can young babies and young children be “overly needy, whiny, [and] undisciplined”???
I don’t stress out about getting my baby to sleep a long time at night, but about the advice to never let my baby stay awake for more than an hour and a half. Sometimes I spend about two hours trying to get my baby to sleep (especially in the mornings). He seems perfectly happy but then if I put him in his cot he screams and screams. I take him for walks and he takes small naps but according to the advice I’ve received it’s not enough. Is this advice peculiar to the modern era or has it always been considered necessary for babies to sleep so frequently? Perhaps in the past babies were always held and so fell asleep in this pattern naturally? I do worry a lot because you can tell that once he is tired his movements become less controlled and I worry that his brain won’t develop properly.
Lucy, I think we read the same book.
4 months ago I was pulling my hair out because my then 2 month old son was not sleeping every 1.5 hours and the book had me convinced that he NEEDED that sleep even though he might not “want” to.
Best thing I did was read “The No-Cry Nap Solution” by Elizabeth Pantley. You just watch him for a day or two, start winding him down as soon as you see the tired signs, then write down the time at exactly the moment he closes his eyes. I found my son functions best when he has 2 hours in between sleeps, but could easily go 3.5-4.5 hours when distracted (eg. friends over, out on a walk, etc) without showing signs of overtiredness. I also realised that for him, yawning was a sign of boredom, NOT tiredness (I was trying to put him to sleep every time he yawned), and when he was actually tired he would rub his eyes. Jerky movements come only when he’s overtired, and then I don’t even bother putting him to sleep; he and I are both happier if I play with him for another hour or so until he gets drowsy again, and then sleeps just fine. Obviously this won’t be the same for all babies, but paying attention helped me understand him better and work with his natural sleepy signs.
Regarding brain development, he rolled over on “schedule” (4 months) and at 6 months is able to sit up on his own, earlier than most other babies in mum’s group. As his mother I am most definitely biased but I do see him smile, “talk” and try to connect with other babies and parents much more than I see other babies of the same age (or older) interact with me and others. It goes without saying that all babies develop at their own pace of course, but I’m just trying to make the point that sleeping every 2-5 hours instead of 1.5 hasn’t hampered his development as far as anyone can say.
Good luck and try to relax. Your tension about him not sleeping regularly enough might also affect your baby. When I recently made a very anxious 24 hour flight, my baby did not feed (at ALL) and hardly slept. When I relaxed on the way home he fed and slept just fine. He didn’t cry once but instead smiled and charmed all the strangers he met. The hardest thing for me was forgetting what I’d read and relaxing about my son’s sleep habits, but it saved my sanity.
I think these comments are very encouraging and freeing for mothers like my lovely daughter in law. I am so sad as I have watched her make unreasonable demands of her first baby. She has adopted very strict time schedules and controlled crying leaning towards CIO to try and make him sleep all night.
Life in the home has become miserable for everyone. My son is desperate as he tries to support his wife who is angry and cold blaming him for every thing. The comments I have read here in the majority are from great mums responding well to the needs of their babes as I did 40 years ago.
I don’t have a problem with this article per se but I admit I find some of the analysis poor. I don’t have children so I don’t have a book on child sleep. I also am not involved in poverty or racism issues on a daily basis so I don’t have books about that. But if I did have a child I’d probably buy a book about parenting. If I worked with issues relating to poverty then I’d buy books about that. So the belief/evaluation we are sleep obsessed based on poor sales of books on racism is tenuous at best, propagandaist at worst. We are certainly child obsessed, but as an evolutionary biologist I believe that that is completely normal. I think yes, some parents worry about things that in the grand scheme of things are not important to a child’s development but this article seems to add to the pressure, anxiety and judgement of parents rather than provide solace. It is, in my opinion, a badly written and unneccesarily prescriptive piece penned by someone with an axe to grind or a book to sell.
hi , I must admit I have been one of the lucky ones to stay home when I had my children , I was also lucky that I had a mum who trained me to be a good mum . as it rarely happens that young women don’t have that relationship anymore with their parents . We put so much emphasis about what the mum and child has to do we didn’t look at what happens when the child is in the womb.
Being a registered nurse for many years I have seen different mums come in with different concerns about children . but I started thinking about how I carried my children what were the pressures on me at the time did I rest, was I anxious,was I contented, was my relation ship great with my husband, I can say they were all positive.
My children were born yes they did wake up during the night, 1 of them had colic and I use to walk the floor with her , but my mum said that happens sometimes there is nothing wrong with it I was also breast feeding . I noted that in the womb my children had their wake times and rest times too . They responded to my husbands and my voice in the womb as well and also responded to my tears and my stressors . another words they were connected too you .
I also noted if my husband and I were having heated discussions like all couples the babies would react and cry .
Another eg was when my daughters was pregnant I emparted the wisdom of my mum and the stuff that I had learnt to my daughters
One of my daughters had her child young she lived at home while she was pregnant and I loved every minute , I use to come home from work and she was always awake to greet me with her tummy lol. I use to say hello to the baby in the womb and rub her tummy . had a cuppa and talk about my shift in the hospital.
My daughter had a ceasaren section. had being a nurse in theatre I was able to be in when she had the little one it was a boy Kurtis he was placed on the table where they wipe them down I cut the umbilical cord and was saying hello to him when he stopped crying opened his eyes and turned and faced me and the midwife nearly dropped the equipment she had never seen that before. another words having a relations ship with your children prior to their birth is a big plus .
yes kurtis did wake a few times a night, but I told my daughter sleep when he sleeps she never looked frazzled and neither did I . it is NORMAL to have your ups and downs with children but remember they have a sleep pattern it is just the parents who stress about it , it is SOCIETY”S angle on it . what you should do or not, . So if your baby wakes in the night IT IS NORMAL their body needs food to grow they need frequent feeds to do this , hence they are programmed to wake in the night, you as a parent should have rest time when baby rests , if baby gets up early around 0530 0600 get up start your chores eg washing, ironing, making lunches, for other children get a routine for your self . IT WORKS .
🙂
[…] friend recently posted a link to this article, Sleep: A Misguided and Unhealthy Obsession that really resonated with the way I’ve been feeling about our family sleep situation […]
My first child, now 8yo, awoke every 2 hours to nurse for the longest. She didn’t sleep through the night, honest to god, until she was 5. My second child, now 5.5yo, also awoke every 2 hours to nurse for the longest. He slept through the night when he was about 4.5yo. both night nursed (tandemed for a long time) until 4yo. This behavior was what I expected and just went with it as part of parenting.
So imagine my surprise when my newest baby, 3mo,started waking up just once within a week. She wakes up about dawn for milk, and that’s it. She’s really often more concerned with a wet diaper than getting milk.
She also naps differently and just goes to sleep where ever (No joke, my 8yo has been holding the baby when the baby went to sleep like a lightswitch) and doesn’t go to sleep nursing — she pulls off and nestles into my breast as if a pillow. A warm, comfy pillow. 🙂 But she is as rotund as the others (I tend to grow chubby babies), so I know she’s getting “enough” milk. My first 2 required me for every single sleep and required to nurse to sleep and, especially my first, wanted to sleep with my nipple in her mouth.
With my 3rd being so different than my first 2… I have to believe that some of this is really baby personality. as with my first 2, i bedshare my 3rd and will nurse her anytime she wants, but she prefers to sleep.
I see what you’re trying to say but it feels like you’re trying to justify your child not sleeping through as scientifically normal which isn’t necessarily true. All of mine have slept through from 2months and fully breastfed, attachment parenting, etc. People have said its luck, but its just normal for them. No sleep training or anything silly like that either. I just wear them as much as pos in the day and keep them snug and warm at night. And get lovely uninterrupted sleep!! And I am by far a better parent for it. I went a bit mad before they slept through!
Not sleeping through IS biologically normal – there’s no bones about that 🙂 And actually, I was never bothered by my daughter’s sleep – we bedshare and she could latch herself and nurse right away so the only bad nights I had were when she was sick. But she fed throughout the night. Some kids naturally sleep more – there’s definitely a large continuum – and that’s great, but if you are interested in reading more on infant biology and sleep, I recommend Dr. Helen Ball – I have a piece of hers on here as well which might be of interest:
https://gku.flm.mybluehost.me/evolutionaryparenting.com/bed-sharing-and-co-sleeping-research-overview/
[…] Sleep: A Misguided and Unhealthy Obsession- Tracy Cassels […]
I’m really struggling with my own lack of sleep since little one came. I’ve had a variety of sleep problems all my life, and tried a variety of ways to fix it, to no avail. Hardest part for me is falling asleep. I often went 24+ hours without sleep, sometimes going 30+ hours. But once I finally fell asleep I was able to stay asleep for at least 9 hours, sometimes fall back asleep for a couple more! Before I got pregnant, it was pretty much a fact that once I fell asleep you couldn’t wake me to a functioning state for at least 6 hours. I could barely make my mouth move to get words out. People would have to ask me yes or no questions so I could “mmhmm” my answer. Jokes about me sleeping through earthquakes and fires abound! I never napped. Ever. I couldn’t. When I was a young child I was nocturnal. When I was a teen I had “mania” which is only getting about 8 hours sleep per week. I had so much energy and sleep took so much effort I just decided I didn’t need sleep. Through my early 20s I kinda went back to nocturnal, then later 20s shifted into this “non-24” round the clock thing where every day I couldn’t help but fall asleep 2 hours later than I did the previous day. I’d often force myself to stay awake an extra 6-12 hours in order to ‘flip my schedule’ back to a more convenient time. This baby has wreaked havoc on my sleep now. I pretty much just don’t sleep. I’m a SAHM and hubby thinks his desk job is more deserving of sleep than my SAHM job. He gets a designated 6 hrs sleep time per day without interruptions. He tells me to “sleep when the baby sleeps” but I physically can’t. He’s very unsympathetic to that because he can fall asleep standing up in 2 minutes if he wants. Thankfully motherhood has given me the ability to wake up at my baby’s slightest fuss, no matter how much sleep I’ve had. Sometimes I get 4 hours, but mostly 2-3 hour naps that leave me feeling more groggy than if I skipped the nap, but I wouldn’t say I’m always properly functioning. I’m not and never have been someone who can survive on naps. I breakdown at least once a week. I get so angry and resent my husband’s sleep. I also have to do the cooking and cleaning, that’s part of the SAHM gig, and also have to pump a lot to keep up my breastmilk supply, and baby doesn’t like to be put down, so my only chance is when he’s sleeping. I don’t even get to shower regularly anymore. What gets me, is even if I didn’t have major sleep problems, and I somehow fixed all that, I still don’t get how babies are designed to need round the clock care and moms are designed to need sleep. The only thing that makes sense is community living, or living with parents and grandparents to share the burden, it simply doesn’t make any sense otherwise, sleep is a basic human need.
I’m so sorry you’re experiencing all of this. This is clearly a serious sleep issue for you (and one that’s longstanding). Have you spoken to your doctor about it?
Regarding babies and sleep: Yes, we are used to community living, but even without that, mothers who co-sleep report better sleep than those who don’t, often because babies will rouse, nurse, and fall back asleep and sometimes Mom doesn’t even notice. The need to get up to nurse is more modern than anything else.
[…] sleep in order to make it fit an idea of how they believe children should sleep. In non-Western societies, children have far fewer sleep ‘problems’ (or maybe more accurately parents are less […]
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