Night Waking is Normal
Cosleeping with baby can help
As mothers, we feel responsible for our baby’s sleep. Other people ask us if our babies are sleeping through the night, as if this is something we can control. So, we lie to one another about whether or not our infant sleeps through the night. And we lie about bringing our baby into bed with us even though more than 50% of us do so.
We lie because our society has unrealistic expectations of babies, and therefore we have unrealistic expectations of ourselves as mothers. Our expectations for our baby’s sleep simply do not coincide with our baby’s actual capabilities, or with the biological imperative of our species.
Night waking is normal
It’s normal for human beings to wake during the night. We each awake several times a night, but may not remember that we have. In fact, a continuous eight-hour sleep routine is unprecedented in human history. According to Roger Ekrich, University Distinguished Professor of history at Virginia Tech and author of At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past,
The dominant pattern of sleep, arguably since time immemorial, was biphasic. Humans slept in…
