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home> topics of interest> parenting1> a good nights sleep
Getting
a Good Night’s Sleep- another perspective.
Dr
Sarah Buckley You can contact Sarah at: sarahjbuckley(at)uqconnect.net To email Sarah, change (at) to @
Published
in Playtimes, the magazine of the Queensland Playgroup Association, May 2002
As
a GP, writer and currently full-time mother to four children, I have many
concerns about the standard advice that mothers are being given about young
children and sleep. ‘How does your child sleep’ in the Oct Playtimes,
endorsed by Queensland Health, and the U.S. ‘Solve Your Child’s Sleep
Problems” by Richard Ferber are two examples of this approach.
These
sources suggest methods such as leaving a child alone to cry for increasing
periods (so-called ‘controlled crying’) and shutting a crying child in their
bedroom so that they learn to go to sleep alone.
Advising
parents to ignore the cries of a distressed child, for however long, does not
produce a loving and trustful parent-child relationship. I wonder how many of us
would want our partners or friends to treat us this way, if we were alone at
night and feeling upset and frightened.
But
it is not only the hard-heartedness of these suggestions that concerns me. All
of the scientific and anthropological research that I have read supports my
instincts and experience. Our babies need constant care and attention because of
their extreme immaturity. Unlike other mammals, they cannot keep themselves
warm, move about, or feed themselves until relatively late in life, which makes
the mother-infant relationship crucial to our offspring’s survival. (McKenna
1996) Our children have therefore developed behaviours and expectations to
ensure that they get the special care that they need in babyhood and beyond.
For
example, for a baby, the safest place is in the mother’s arms-and this is
still true today, with SIDS being the leading cause of death in young babies.
This applies equally at night, when sleeping with the mother- also called
co-sleeping- gives the baby protection, temperature regulation, emotional
reassurance and breast milk. It’s a perfect system, and what babies are born
to expect.
The
mother also receives rewards - nature always puts in a reward to encourage us.
Co-sleeping gives us less disturbed sleep because we both get into the same
sleep cycles, and our babies will wake to feed when we are both are in light
sleep. We can do more breast feeding for less effort and therefore maximise the
contraceptive effect.
We
will also benefit from the extra doses of two breastfeeding hormones. Oxytocin-
the hormone of love- is stimulated by both breastfeeding and by skin-to-skin
contact, and keeps mother and baby soft and loving with each other. Endorphins
are the hormones of pleasure, making mother- as well as baby- relaxed and
sleepy: just right for night feeding. No wonder co-sleeping mothers and babies
wake up with a smile.
World-wide
research confirms the safety of co-sleeping, as long as parents are not smokers,
grossly obese, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and attention is
given to avoiding the suffocation hazards that go with our soft western bedding.
My
other major concern is that this approach to sleep follows our society’s
belief that our children will not become independent unless we force them. In
fact, research shows that the exact opposite is true. “Research by Mary
Ainsworth confirms that indulgence of early dependency needs leads to
independence” and “A mother’s reliability and receptivity promote trust
and emotional stability in her child”. (Klein, 1995). In other words, when we
treat our children with love and respect for their needs, we plant the seeds for
a lifetime of happiness – and relaxed sleep.
For
myself, the benefits of co-sleeping do not end with babyhood- my older children
are equally sweet and cuddly at night, and sharing sleep into the pre-school
years has its own rewards.
For
example, sleep becomes a time to share intimacy and loving feelings, especially
when the day has been gruelling or conflict has arisen. There is nothing so
sweet as lying next to my child as he/she drops into dreams (and often we do
this at the same time). We have never had the bedtime battles or night terrors
that are considered ‘normal’ in our culture- and remember that our culture
is totally abnormal, in global terms, in not sharing sleep between family
members.
Every
co-sleeping family that I have met has their own unique arrangement. Right now
in our household, our middle children sleep together in a double bed, and our
eldest Emma, 10 has graduated, in her own time, to her own bed. We continue to
lie down to settle Zoe (8) – although she says she can put herself to sleep
now- and Jacob, 5, who often joins us in the wee hours. (We have a king-sized
bed which we have turned around to make it 6’6 wide and 6’ long- a real
‘family bed’)
These
three children, who are very confident and sociable, have no problems with
different routines when they sleep over with their friends- and why would they,
when sleep has always been easy and pleasurable for them?
My
youngest, Maia, who is 15 months, continues to fall asleep most nights with
Mother Natures best toddy- breast milk. Breastmilk contains oxytocin and
endorphins, and it seems right that we give ourselves and our babies the benefit
of these gentle hormones at sleeptimes.
Since
my first baby, I have gained more confidence and experience with co-sleeping,
and honestly, some of the things that are said to discourage us strike me as
crazy. For example, I have read in many places -also in the previous article-
that if we cuddle or nurse our baby to sleep, they may awaken later and
“…may not be able to go back to sleep because their environment has
changed”. As an adult waking up, I don’t remember how I got to sleep, and it
seems to me that our babies simply want to be held and nursed to sleep because
it is pleasurable, biologically adaptive, and it works.
A
family bed might not suit every family, but I feel that it is important to
consider that co-sleeping is what we as humans have evolved to do with our
young, and it is in turn what our babies and small children expect. When we ask
our children to sleep alone all night, we are stretching their biological
capabilities, and there is a good chance that they will protest.
If
this happens, we can choose not to lock them up, but to take their feedback
seriously and work to find loving, gentle and co-operative solutions- and there
are many different possibilities.
For
example, some families have invited an older child back into their bedroom, and
found that a ‘dose’ of co-sleeping, or even sleeping on the floor (in what
Emma calls a ‘nest’) is all that is needed.
In
many families- as in ours- one parent lies down with a child or children until
they fall asleep, giving reassurance at the time when it is most needed. Sitting
quietly or meditating also work well at this time- and I am less likely to fall
asleep myself.
When
children wake in the dark hours, we have often gone into the child’s bed-
double beds work best for obvious reasons- and fallen asleep until morning. This
is currently my partner Nicholas’s specialty- we have a casual division of
night-time labour with Maia being my responsibility, and the others his.
When
a child is sick or needing extra care, it feels good to have them in our bed,
only an arm’s length away. Needing an extra dose on Mummy or Daddy is a good
enough reason most of the time, and I notice that sleeping together promotes
harmony with each other in a subtle and beautiful way.
As
parents, we are in it for the long haul, whether we like it or not. Controlled
crying, ‘Ferberizing” and the like are short-term solutions that I see as
detrimental in the long-term.
Our
children will outgrow their dependency needs- including the need for company at
sleep time- in their own time, and our job is to provide the love, reassurance
and guidance that maximises growth and happiness in the short, medium and long
terms.
As
one !Kung mother from the African desert responded to Dr Spock (who also
advocated ignoring our children’s cries) “Doesn’t he understand that
he’s only a baby and that’s why he cries? You pick him up and comfort him.
When he’s older, he will have sense and he won’t cry any more.”
I
hope that we as a culture can come to our senses also and treat our children
lovingly day and night.
References
Klein, Paul. The needs of children. Mothering magazine (US) number 74, Spring 1995. P 39-45
McKenna, James. Babies need their mothers beside them. World Health, the journal of the World Health Organization, March-April 1996. Also at www.naturalchild.com
Konner,
Melanie Childhood Little Brown &
Co, Boston, 1991 Further reading
Meredith
E Small. Our Babies, Ourselves – How
Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent. 1998 Doubleday. Tine Thevenin The Family Bed: An Age-Old Concept in Child Rearing Avery 1986
Debra
Jackson. Three in a Bed- the benefits of
sharing your bed with your baby. Bloomsbury New York 1999 William Sears
Night
Time Parenting
AuthorSarah J Buckley is a GP/family MD, an internationally published writer on pregnancy birth and mothering, and mother of 4 children, all born gently at home. Sarah is the author of the book Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering. See her website for more details, www.sarahjbuckley.com
Disclaimer The information contained on this website is of a general nature and is designed for educational purposes only. The information is not meant to replace the recommendations or advise of your midwife or doctor. Please consult your midwife or doctor regarding your health care.
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