What is Normal Sleep?

I see so many parents in real life and the blogging world stress and drive themselves crazy because their babies don't sleep through the night by X month. Even the pediatrician at Hazel's four month appointment told me to let her fuss at night and that she no longer needed feedings throughout the night. I just gave them the old smile and nod because I know my baby and I know that she hasn't been nursing as much during the day because she's too busy exploring so she's making up for it by nursing more at night. This is one of the many reasons bedsharing is the right choice for our family--I can not even begin to imagine how tired I'd be if I had to get Hazel from a crib multiple times a night.

Recently, I became concerned with the amount of sleep she was getting. Was she sleeping enough? Too much? Why are her naps so short? Should she take more naps? It took me two days of worrying before I said, screw it. My baby is an individual  just like I am. Why should I expect her to fit into some doctor's book's sleep schedule? I went back to reading her cues and going with the flow and you know what? We are much happier.

 If your baby sleeps through the night then GREAT! Sleep. Woohoo! The thing is though--IT IS NORMAL FOR A BABY TO NOT SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT so don't worry if your baby is still waking at night.

I've made it very clear that I am against letting a baby cry it out. I shouldn't have to explain why. I understand that sometimes parents feel that they have no other choice and no matter what they their baby will just not sleep. Everyone around them is telling them that they're baby should be sleeping through the night and that you, "have to just let them cry or how else will they learn to go to sleep?" Of course only you, as the parent, can make the choice that best fits the needs of your family but I want to offer you some additional information that I've found helpful.

The No Cry Sleep Solution is a WONDERFUL book that offers solutions and suggestions on gently guiding your baby to sleep through the night and also getting them to sleep without the rocking, bouncing, nursing so many babies (and mommies!) grow accustomed to. 

Evolutionary Parentss recently written a couple different articles about normal infant sleep patterns that I've really enjoyed too! Here's an excerpt. (Not sure what is up with the formatting--I'll try to fix when I can get on my PC.)

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 lessamenable 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.