Why Are We Obsessed With Baby Sleep?
My blog is moderately well read. So it was a surprise when, without getting into TMI, one morning I woke up after posting this, and saw that my stats showed readership in 1000’s without me doing anything to promote the post. No Facebook, no twitter, no nothing.
It was no different from my other posts where I write about stuff from my point of view with regards to health mostly, and living life from a traditional or evolutionary perspective.
But this was a topic that happened to touch a deep chord with many people and went viral.
The topic of course was – baby sleep! It’s safe to say that it’s an obsession, especially amongst first time parents.
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 -26135 paperbacks.
All about-to-be parents are told during pregnancy – ‘rest up, once baby comes you wont sleep’. But you don’t realize what it means to get broken sleep continuously, having to attend to a hungry dependent mouth at any hour day or night, until you’re actually there. Its enough to make the best intentioned amongst us desperate to find any solution.
To make matters worse sadly most moms are led to believe (by the experts) during prenatal class or baby books or doctors that your baby will sleep through the night by so and so months. I remember the lady in my prenatal class clearly saying that after the 3rd month when the baby sleeps through the night, never offer breast or bottle after that. I just went to the pediatrician for N’s 9 month vaccination the other day and the first thing he told me that I must wean him off in the night so he will sleep the whole night and eat well during the day.
But here’s the catch.
When it comes to most other things that I write about on this blog that is eating a certain way, exercising a certain way, having a different take on many things we take for granted, it has to do with US. Rational human adults who have cast aside our natural instincts, read general research, follow advice that is normally against stuff that comes naturally to us, and have adapted along the way.
So when I say you know what, we’re not traditionally supposed to eat grains, you say – bah humbug! Let me shut this page right now because how else are we to get fiber? and of course everyone (and their mothers) know that whole grains are healthy! That’s what even the science and the doctors out there say!
We humans are adaptable creatures, able to apply our large brains to arguments over feelings, and when the whole world says things are to be a certain way, we take it as the gospel truth, though we may not be feeling completely right. (Migraines, pcos, belly fat, low fertility anyone?)
But a baby?
A baby is born primal. Anyone who spends anytime at all with a newborn knows that. Babies are born almost blind and can see blurry, but they can make out their parents by their smell and the mother by the smell of her milk. Which is why the presence of a mother near a newborn confuses her, as the smell of the milk is so strong she feels the urge to suck and root around for the nipple.
Their needs are simple and few. Warmth of the parent, satisfaction of hunger, and the need to feel protected cover most of them.
The baby has not read a lot. The baby has not listened to this ‘experts speak’. The baby has not surfed Google and has no idea about what the latest research on sleep says. The baby is oblivious to all of this.
The baby wants to be near his most precious caregiver, warmth giver, protection giver, and feeder. The baby needs the person who takes care of all his needs.
Which is why a particularly persevering baby will scream, cry, or vomit when he or she is denied their most basic need particularly in the dark of the night when they are at their most vulnerable.
And this absolute disconnect in mindset between todays rules, the working mum’s conundrum, and the little innocent baby causes tremendous confusion to the parents where none of the advice that’s been handed out is making sense to the baby and you’re left wondering what you’ve done wrong. The trusted doctor and sleep experts tell you something (and of course you’ve always followed the popular mindset) and your baby is telling you something totally different.
The baby is saying, traditionally my mamma slept with me and didn’t know any better, nursed me when I awoke in the night, kept me close to her and carried me all the time. So I don’t understand why you’re not doing all these things now. This is what I need, I don’t know any better.
I guess we’re grappling with what is meant to be, and how today’s life has completely done a U turn on us. We have to wake up earlier and rush to work. We have lots more social obligations to fill in – we cannot take out baby to the pub with us. Our babies should not sleep with us else they will get crushed. I should not feed my baby in the night or I may spoil him. If I continue night feeds he won’t eat his rice and daal (seriously people?).
I think this obsession of baby sleep comes from the fact that today’s reality and way of thinking is so different from a newborn’s instinct that when we try and force it down them it backfires at times and the parent is left thoroughly confused.
I’ve been there. It’s not fun. But it’s great learning all the same.
I want to tell new parents that frequent night waking for the first two years is NORMAL and that it’s not us who are doing anything wrong and there is nothing wrong with your baby’s sleep. I find that once I’ve accepted that normal, I sleep easier knowing I am not doing anything wrong.
Thanks for reading! What do you think? is this why we’re so obsessed with baby sleep?
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Once again good read…I think its not just baby sleep but anything that people give advice and say this is the norm…but who started this norm..so in the end instincts is the best guess u or I can take…
so good luck!!
Manasa
yes but the point i am trying to make is that we are conditioned to ignore our instincts but babies are not. so they are not going to bother with anybody’s norm but their own
Baby sleep obsession started in the West, I think. I think it’s come in from the social system where there is little or no help from family/grandparents in taking care of kids and domestic labor being hugely expensive. Women need to work and need their babies to sleep so that they can catch up on some too. In India, with the decline of the joint family system, lesser availability of domestic help, both partners working etc etc, women want their kids to get as much sleep as possible so that they can sleep and be more functional.
My daughter was a good sleeper from very early on, and I didn’t work for the first year that she was born, so I didn’t even bother that much about sleep training. When I started part-time work and she started out at playschool after a year, I missed her so much that we started co-sleeping and it worked even better at helping her sleep longer. I listen to both kinds of opinions with equal enthusiasm – one coming from people who believe that babies can be conditioned to develop better sleeping habits and the other from people who just go with their babies’ instincts, but all I want to say is that after a few years, that’s the part that you won’t even remember as much.
This is not to undermine the women who have older kids to tend to and other work around the house or a job or all of these, I totally respect their parenting decisions to sleep-train/wean/co-sleep/whatever. But there shouldn’t be any pressure on anyone regarding their babies’ sleeping or waking or nursing habits. It’s a very personal space, and it should stay that way.
Hi thanks for your comment. Sleep training per se is definitely from the west. But in india even though most parents do co sleep and do not sleep train, there still is a lot of worry and angst because moms think their babies should be a certain way, sleeping all night etc. when actually if they’re not sleeping all night and it works for you it’s completely ok.
Only when it really is not working for like when you’re working and can’t function in the day that it becomes a problem.
For me for example it wasn’t even a real problem and I was making it into one just because everybody was saying that my baby should be sleeping and not nursing in the night etc.
honestly I have nothing against any sleep training at all. But figuring out that I don’t need to even go there, and that I am very happy with my set up and i dont mind my baby waking because its what babies do is a big load off.
I think the question to ask yourself is, is it such a big deal? If it isn’t then you should not pay heed to what anyone says including the doctors.
Great post Aloka. I’ve certainly spent a great deal of time researching baby sleep over the years and I agree a lot with what you are saying. There are so many articles and on baby sleep available to us as parents. But unfortunately, many contradict one another, so we are left thinking what to do. For example, in the West many say co-sleeping increases the risk of SIDS. However, the majority of parents in the world still co-sleep and it’s really only in the US, UK and a few other Western countries where this isn’t the case.
However, whilst I agree you shouldn’t worry and stress about baby sleep too much, there are certain techniques which can help. I believe if the conditions are right and a baby is getting enough milk, then in the majority of cases, he/she can sleep through the night from a fairly early age.
Andrea => http://allbabythings
I agree all the stuff out there contradicts one another. So I just feel you should trust your instincts and your baby’s instincts and not listen to what everyone else is telling you. And it your baby’s waking is not bothering yu but other people telling you that you should be bothered is what’s affecting you then the way I see it is that we don’t have a problem!
Also, maybe the baby is getting enough milk but maybe the baby needs and wants his mom and if it you are not getting too affected as the baby falls back to sleep on his or her own while nursing, then why change it?
hi aloka! i liked this post sooo much that today i came back and read it. i constantly need to remind myself that i am doing the right thing, because so often i start to feel the pressure build once again: the sleep deprivation, then the question “why isn’t he sleeping” and worse still are the “expert’s” advice on how to make him sleep. your blog is so relxing because it mmakes us trust out instincts and go with the flow!
Hi Dhanwanti! thanks so much!
I know i wrote it. but i still have doubts at 3 am sometimes when my nearly 11 month old is awake for the 2nd time.
But because I worry less and less I fall right back to sleep which helps. I know i cannot do it any other way! I plan to explain things to him when he is 18 months old and still waking to feed at night. Putting it simply saying no more feeds at night. Until he can understand that properly I plan to continue this way! I think until children are forced, they just dont give up the night feeds that easily (specially breastfed babies). Which makes me think that maybe they don’t give it up because it comes naturally to them.
First reaction! Thank you God ..thank you Aloka!!!!
A big Wooooff moment☺
This blog is a stress reliever for me. I was pushing myself to follow elders advise, expert tips ( on net), frens tricks for my 3 month old sleep pattern but on everything. Diapering, nursing, bf etc. But big thanks Aloka for reminding that our instinct is what we should listen to… Specially mother’s, which is a blessing we all have n seldom not used
thanks meera! i hear you! it was a huuuge woooof moment for me too when i discovered that the ‘rules’ are nothing but marketing and selling of books 🙂 really started enjoying my baby, parenting and the nights after that knowing i am not messing him up for life ! good luck!