When a baby is born, and although we are advised, the parents' sleep hours become a very precious asset. Babies wake up at all hours (or we have that impression) and let little sleep.
This means that adults sometimes live as authentic zoombies and we ask ourselves when will they sleep all night.
I will try to explain it, although I already notice that it is not usually a matter of months.
A few weeks ago I invited the reflection explaining that babies are, although it is sometimes difficult to get to the idea, mammalian animals. They are born with a very early brain development and with some automatisms and needs whose schedules are little compatible with ours.
And of course, we have obligations to fulfill and a very limited time to rest (or we sleep at night or we no longer sleep) and the awakening of children is a nuisance to parents. But they are not to blame. The problem is ours.
How is the dream of babies
From birth to 4-6 months, the sleep of babies is biphasic (two phases), while from then on it has 5 phases, as we adults have.
The fact that their sleep only alternates two phases causes them to wake up often, since at the end of the two phases they wake up to eat, to promote contact and bonding and to avoid dangers (they do not know that there is no danger and need the security of knowing that their caregivers are close).
The child then reaches the age of 4-6 months and his dream begins to change. New phases appear in your dream that often wake you up during the night.
Although it may seem a lie, we adults, who have these same phases, we also wake up often during the night. The difference is that we do not realize (we turn in bed, we cover ourselves ...) and they, not knowing how to go back to sleep, wake up.
If you don't know, you have to teach him, right?
Most methods for children to sleep aim to teach babies to sleep. This is nonsense, because babies already know how to sleep. In mom's belly they already do it and as a newborn they continue to do it.
Now, if I just said that the new phases cause them awakenings that they don't know how to manage, it seems that since they don't know, they have to be taught.
The truth is not everything that someone has to learn must be taught by another person. Children have to learn to breathe at birth, and nobody teaches them, they have to learn to chew by six months and nobody makes them move their jaws, they have to learn to walk and nobody teaches them to do so.
Well, children's dream is the same. Most people slept all night and nobody has taught us. It is a matter of maturation. When they are prepared to do so they will.
Children's sleep is evolutionary, it changes as the baby's brain does it and whether you want it or not, it will go from A to Z (ZzZzZz) sooner or later, but to get to Z you must first go through all Other letters of the alphabet.
The tips and methods that recommend "skipping the letters", that is, letting them fall asleep forcing learning they do not take into account the normal development of sleep patterns or emotional needs of parents and babies.
These methods try to make a 6-month-old child sleep as if he were 6 years old, skipping all the steps he needs to achieve a healthy sleep, without fears, insomnia, or avoidable nightmares, and in an unpleasant way, leaving unattended and crying to most children (if it were still fun ...).
It is to teach him to repress his needs and to silence his disagreements, in other words, to keep his problems for himself because others ignore them. The irony is that then, in adulthood, the recommendation is the opposite: "Get your problems out, if you swallow them and the ball gets bigger and bigger, there comes a time when you explode."
But Estivill says ...
... that at six months they should already sleep through the night (I speak of Estivill because in Spain it is the largest representative of behavioral methods based on the neglect of babies).
Of course it says, because for some parents to need to carry out a method that is a “solution” first they have to be convinced that there is a problem. Invented the problem, invented the solution.
Answering the question with which we started the entry, the truth is that until 2-3 years children do not start to leave awakenings behind. Some children will do it before and others will do it even later, naturally and without the need for intervention of any kind.
