alt Hacker NewsHow can I explain to my 6 months old girl that we all need to sleep :D
This is a bug in the universe! We need to sleep so that the levels of dopamine, and hormones of hunger and not hunger are at good levels, so that we can be healthy and strong, so that the immune system is stable and strong... And we need to get good sleep so that we can protect our children and be sane....
BUT the nature decided that the kids will wake up 3-4 times per night, and you need to wake up and take care of them.
You sleep in best case, on pauses, not more than 4-6 hours, you feel miserable, and at the same time you are THE HAPPIEST PERSON IN THIS WORLD! :)
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FWIW, and understanding that individual babies do differ, most babies can sleep through the night (10-12 hours) by 3-4 months old. Check out the books "Twelve Hours' Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old" or "Precious Little Sleep" for guidance.
In my case where n=2, naps during the day are/were not all that consistent but at night (unless they are very sick or something) the kids sleep.
> This is a bug in the universe!
Is it? Couldn't it be a bug in our society/economy instead? What if nature wanted us to take some naps through the day and not just one period of sleep in the night? Waking up multiple times at night wouldn't hurt too much then.
Last month there was a heartbreaking news about a < 6 month old baby being snatched away by a leopard while the baby was sleeping next to the parent and the parent realized her baby was missing only much later.
I imagine the predator situation would have been much worse during the early human evolution years. I don't know if that was a beneficial trait or not in that environment.
As a parent, I just wonder what-if.
How do I explain this to 15yo teenager?..
Part of this is also our culture that somehow decided kids need their own bed, and it's easy to get baby formula.
So the kids are not sleeping in our beds, where they feel 100% secure, getting to the breast whenever they want (and they quickly will want it at a lesser frequency). The woman will feel this, but hardly has to wake up, me... I slept right through all that. Fwiw, we had a bed for the baby that attached to ours.
In our time everybody advised us: Give the bady a load of milk at 23:00 just before you go to bed! We never did, just stuck to about did 20:00, or just when baby cried, both babies took about 2 months to sleep for about 12 hours straight (although soon after the second one developed reflux which had me watch Rick and Morty in its entirety somewhere between 2 and 4 for some time).
Anyway, not saying everybody is that lucky, just saying sometimes it's good to questions things that are given in one's culture. Worst advice imho is "let the baby cry" which was common on our days. How nice to let a baby cry alone in a room, not understanding anything about what happens...
I can relate to this. Got two kids and I must say if someone told me that it will be this hard I wouldn't believe it.
Raising kids is the hardest and most fulfilling job.
In my area there is a saying like "it takes a village to raise a child". i believe that a good social network is not only important for the kid, but for the parents too. it helps so much to have a partner, grandparents, aunts/uncles, who can look over the kid just for a hour or 2, so you can get your rest. And its usually fun for the kids too. Now that i have 2 kids, a loving wife and 2 families around me, i have the highest respect for all the single moms/dads out there.