This has been my experience in co-sleeping with babies. Though there are certainly nights where the baby keeps me awake more — due to teething, fever, what have you — the overall effect of sideline nursing is undisturbed rest. Baby stirs, I roll over to nurse, we both drift back to sleep, voilà. There is no stark transition from lying down to rushing to calm the crying baby in the crib.
My father-in-law grew up in a Dayak hunter-gatherer culture. They lived in a longhouse with lots of other families. His mom's milk didn't come in when she had him, so he literally only nursed every couple of days when his aunt, who happened to have a similarly aged child, was around. It's a miracle he survived at all.
Sleep is very different in Indonesia than the West. There's not an expectation that you're going to get X amount of sleep every night. People often go to bed really late, wake up very early, and take long naps when they get home from work. My mother-in-law wakes up all the time in the middle of the night to watch television, etc. It's just different.
When I had my first child I thought she should sleep in her own crib next to our bed. I lasted at most three nights, I don't quite remember, before I gave up and allowed her and myself to fall asleep next to each other while nursing. We bought a larger bed. As soon as my children were old enough not to poop during every feeding, I felt I slept well despite nursing. Just as the hunter-gatherers describe, the babies ate in their sleep and I nursed in my sleep.
It seems to me that the fear of SIDS makes breastfeeding into sleep deprivation torture. I haven't read the studies on SIDS properly so I can't judge exactly how risky our bedsharing was. If you plan to include that in your book, I would be very interested!
Having nursed all 8 of my babies, I can definitely say that co-sleeping was the best way for me to sleep, and baby to feed with (nearly) unrestricted access. It was a win/win situation. I think it helped to read Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing: How Ecological Breastfeeding Spaces Babies by Sheila Matgen Kippley, in which I discovered that the US/West is pretty unique in having our babies sleep in cribs, use formula, pacifiers, etc. Please know I am not criticizing mothers who do any of these things, it's just that most of the people I remember seeing as I was growing up had their babies sleep in cribs, used formula/bottle-feeding, used pacifiers and then after I read this book, it seemed as though much of the rest of the world did co-sleeping, more natural type breastfeeding, etc. It really was an eye-opener for me, and it was a way of mothering that was in tune with my instincts, so that's what I did. I also recall telling my doctor about this book and she shared that was the type of mothering she saw with the women in Africa when she was on a mission trip.
This was an interesting article - thanks for writing.
Loved this piece. Interesting to learn that I sleep in a very hunter/gatherer way - my daughter co-sleeps with me and we feed lying down, so my sleep is often decent despite her needing milk in the night. I'm so much less sleep deprived since I gave in to co-sleeping, not sure how I would have survived without it
I can say that within the last 4.5 years of being a mom and breastfeeding that whole time, often times a baby and a toddler at the same time during the night, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve woken up and felt sleep deprived. I have a 4.5 year old, a 2.5 year old and a 12 month old and we all still sleep together, I weaned my middle recently so I only nurse my youngest all night but I tandem fed my oldest and middle, and then again my middle and youngest. Breastfeeding and bed sharing is the way to go to get the most amount of sleep even when nursing all night!
Not surprising to me. My kids were born in 1989 and 1992. For my first, I used a crib and had no idea there was an alternative. And then we moved and she started teething and I decided to give this “new” idea a try because I was so exhausted. Life-changing! I suddenly got sleep!
My son never slept a minute in a crib in his life. He nursed at will. We had easy, peaceful nights.
We did it safely: see Dr. McKenna’s mother-baby sleep lab at Notre Dame.
See also Dettwyler’s Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives.
Makes sense..... I was in the peace corps in Mozambique and that's what happened to my neighbor's four year old, he'd just pass out during dinner and after dinner they'd carry him away to bed. It's wild though what you were saying about the lack of attention paid to these types of things in the research. You'd think that would be such a part of daily life it would get recorded.
What does sleep look like for infants and toddlers in these societies? Are they doing 12 hour nights like we expect? Are they just passing out early around the campfire and then their parents carry them to bed?
But I’ve also heard that the !Kung will put a baby or child to bed on the skin in the hut and then sit together at their hearth outside the hut. There are also recorded instances of leaving them in the care of older children to go to a trance dance.
That’s a great question and one I have been very curious about myself. Unfortunately we don’t seem to have any research! What I have been able to piece together from some snippets here and there is that they probably fall asleep in someone’s arms around the fire and are transferred to bed when the adult goes to sleep.
This has been my experience in co-sleeping with babies. Though there are certainly nights where the baby keeps me awake more — due to teething, fever, what have you — the overall effect of sideline nursing is undisturbed rest. Baby stirs, I roll over to nurse, we both drift back to sleep, voilà. There is no stark transition from lying down to rushing to calm the crying baby in the crib.
My father-in-law grew up in a Dayak hunter-gatherer culture. They lived in a longhouse with lots of other families. His mom's milk didn't come in when she had him, so he literally only nursed every couple of days when his aunt, who happened to have a similarly aged child, was around. It's a miracle he survived at all.
Sleep is very different in Indonesia than the West. There's not an expectation that you're going to get X amount of sleep every night. People often go to bed really late, wake up very early, and take long naps when they get home from work. My mother-in-law wakes up all the time in the middle of the night to watch television, etc. It's just different.
So interesting!! Did you read my article on how crappy sleep is an ancient feature of humanity? It’s all about this
I'll have to look it up! It is fascinating how different sleep and child-rearing are around the world...
I would be willing to bet that their lack of feeling tired comes from circadian rhythm health and a less stressful lifestyle.
Yes I think that probably has a LOT to do with it
When I had my first child I thought she should sleep in her own crib next to our bed. I lasted at most three nights, I don't quite remember, before I gave up and allowed her and myself to fall asleep next to each other while nursing. We bought a larger bed. As soon as my children were old enough not to poop during every feeding, I felt I slept well despite nursing. Just as the hunter-gatherers describe, the babies ate in their sleep and I nursed in my sleep.
It seems to me that the fear of SIDS makes breastfeeding into sleep deprivation torture. I haven't read the studies on SIDS properly so I can't judge exactly how risky our bedsharing was. If you plan to include that in your book, I would be very interested!
Thank you for writing!
Having nursed all 8 of my babies, I can definitely say that co-sleeping was the best way for me to sleep, and baby to feed with (nearly) unrestricted access. It was a win/win situation. I think it helped to read Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing: How Ecological Breastfeeding Spaces Babies by Sheila Matgen Kippley, in which I discovered that the US/West is pretty unique in having our babies sleep in cribs, use formula, pacifiers, etc. Please know I am not criticizing mothers who do any of these things, it's just that most of the people I remember seeing as I was growing up had their babies sleep in cribs, used formula/bottle-feeding, used pacifiers and then after I read this book, it seemed as though much of the rest of the world did co-sleeping, more natural type breastfeeding, etc. It really was an eye-opener for me, and it was a way of mothering that was in tune with my instincts, so that's what I did. I also recall telling my doctor about this book and she shared that was the type of mothering she saw with the women in Africa when she was on a mission trip.
This was an interesting article - thanks for writing.
Loved this piece. Interesting to learn that I sleep in a very hunter/gatherer way - my daughter co-sleeps with me and we feed lying down, so my sleep is often decent despite her needing milk in the night. I'm so much less sleep deprived since I gave in to co-sleeping, not sure how I would have survived without it
I can say that within the last 4.5 years of being a mom and breastfeeding that whole time, often times a baby and a toddler at the same time during the night, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve woken up and felt sleep deprived. I have a 4.5 year old, a 2.5 year old and a 12 month old and we all still sleep together, I weaned my middle recently so I only nurse my youngest all night but I tandem fed my oldest and middle, and then again my middle and youngest. Breastfeeding and bed sharing is the way to go to get the most amount of sleep even when nursing all night!
Not surprising to me. My kids were born in 1989 and 1992. For my first, I used a crib and had no idea there was an alternative. And then we moved and she started teething and I decided to give this “new” idea a try because I was so exhausted. Life-changing! I suddenly got sleep!
My son never slept a minute in a crib in his life. He nursed at will. We had easy, peaceful nights.
We did it safely: see Dr. McKenna’s mother-baby sleep lab at Notre Dame.
See also Dettwyler’s Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives.
Makes sense..... I was in the peace corps in Mozambique and that's what happened to my neighbor's four year old, he'd just pass out during dinner and after dinner they'd carry him away to bed. It's wild though what you were saying about the lack of attention paid to these types of things in the research. You'd think that would be such a part of daily life it would get recorded.
What does sleep look like for infants and toddlers in these societies? Are they doing 12 hour nights like we expect? Are they just passing out early around the campfire and then their parents carry them to bed?
But I’ve also heard that the !Kung will put a baby or child to bed on the skin in the hut and then sit together at their hearth outside the hut. There are also recorded instances of leaving them in the care of older children to go to a trance dance.
Trance dance is definitely the missing piece in my household!!!
That’s a great question and one I have been very curious about myself. Unfortunately we don’t seem to have any research! What I have been able to piece together from some snippets here and there is that they probably fall asleep in someone’s arms around the fire and are transferred to bed when the adult goes to sleep.