Is it really natural? Gentle sleep practices -> no sleep for some

[laohaire]

OK, this might be a debate thread, I don't know. I'm hoping we can all be open to various thoughts and have an INTERESTING and not heated discussion.

Many of us here practice what I'll refer to as "gentle sleep" - just a combination of a variety of things, such as cosleeping, no CIO, BFing through the night, that sort of thing.

Some - not all - of us are also suffering with sleep problems. There's a huge variation on that, with some feeling very satisfied and waking up refreshed, and others feeling like zombies day after day after day. Number of hours slept/number of times woken up isn't important; how rested everyone feels is.

So if "gentle sleep" is really natural, does it mean that in our most natural state, women were meant to suffer from lack of sleep for a huge portion - perhaps even majority - of their lives?

My DD is 17 months. While I usually feel like I have "adequate" sleep, "adequate" is the BEST I can describe my sleep for nearly 1.5 years. And it's quite common - maybe 1/3 of the time - that I feel I got LESS than adequate sleep. Sometimes I believe I have as little as 1-2 hours of sleep, though it's difficult to quantify.

If we were talking about a totally "natural" situation, a woman would be pregnant I think about every couple of years from late teens all the way up to the end of fertility - right? So would that mean that a woman's ability to sleep would END upon the birth of her first child? For maybe 20 YEARS?

Were we made to do that?

Are there other factors we're missing?

Are we doing something wrong?

Am I just a crybaby? Am I getting plenty of sleep but just b*tchin' cause I don't wake up wanting to climb K2?

EDIT: This is not, in any possible way, a CIO thread. I didn't mention CIO but upon re-reading, it may seem that I am saying that by questioning if "gentle sleep" is really the natural/best way. I was actually wondering if there was some other factor that we weren't incorporating into our modern lives - and that factor would NOT be CIO. But rather something that needs to be added to gentle sleep practices.

[prettypixels]

I don't know about "natural" or not, and really, who cares? Natural is a word. The real bottom line is that AP practices are supposed to create happy parents and happy babies. It should be *mutually agreeable,* not you sacrificing EVERYTHING, FOREVER, in favor of your child.

Of course, we all make sacrifices for our children. But in general your lifestyle should be agreeable to everyone involved! Even Dr. Sears discusses this in reference to both sleep practices and extended breastfeeding.

More important than whether or not anything you are doing can be labelled "natural," IMO, is whether or not your *family* (which includes YOU) are having their needs met in a way that is most agreeable to everyone.

[alegna]

One thought, off the top of my head, is that historically, humans have gone to bed with the sun most of the time. They also have not had time constraints that they do these days. So moms (and everyone else) would go into parenthood with a sleep surplus and be able to catch up here and there with infants as they slept. Mid-day naps were traditional in many early societies.

-Angela

[mom2mich]

Interesting. Any archaeologists out there?

If we were talking about a totally "natural" situation, a woman would be pregnant I think about every couple of years from late teens all the way up to the end of fertility - right? So would that mean that a woman's ability to sleep would END upon the birth of her first child? For maybe 20 YEARS?

Three things I could think of re the above quote although I am not claiming any validity.

1. Humans weren't meant to live this long, biologically. I mean, at least not until menopause, right? So, wouldn't fertility not have lasted so long as well?
2. It used to be that offspring would die much more often due to disease, environment, etc... so humans didn't have so many babies all at once.
3. Were we really biologically intended to have so many babies so close in age? I always wonder why we get our period and/or continue to be fertile even when we're still exclusively breastfeeding. Maybe this didn't used to be the case? Aren't chimps only fertile a couple times a year? Actually, isn't the natural child spacing of chimps something like 4-5 years?

[LookMommy!]

I guess that if naturally women are not isolated, then naturally they could catch a nap when a female relative is looking after their baby. How many of us actually go to bed at night at the same time as our kids? Not so many, judging by computer usage!

[NotTheOnlyOne]

Originally Posted by alegna

One thought, off the top of my head, is that historically, humans have gone to bed with the sun most of the time. They also have not had time constraints that they do these days. So moms (and everyone else) would go into parenthood with a sleep surplus and be able to catch up here and there with infants as they slept. Mid-day naps were traditional in many early societies.

-Angela

I was totally thinking the same thing. DH and I have been watching Lost on DVD and I find myself fantasizing of being on an island where all I have to do is take care of my baby and go to sleep when the sun sets. Thatd be a good 10-12 hours depending on location and time of year!! The most I can HOPE for is 7 hours. Interesting thread.

[D_McG]

Originally Posted by LookMommy!

I guess that if naturally women are not isolated, then naturally they could catch a nap when a female relative is looking after their baby. How many of us actually go to bed at night at the same time as our kids? Not so many, judging by computer usage!

I believe this is key.

[WhaleinGaloshes]

I also believe that 'natural' child spacing would be greater than a couple of years...I also think I've read that 4 years is average for non-industrialized, more primitive-living societies. And I don't think that a 20 year span of fertility is very realistic without modern medicine, nutrition, etc.

My suggestion for 'what are we doing wrong' is probably trying to do too much during the day. My daughter goes through periods of waking often, but she manages to get in almost 14 hours of sleep per day and she is generally quite rested and perky. What am I doing that's so important that I'm barely eeking by with 5 or 6?

[Hoopin' Mama]

Yup, totally natural. I don't think we would have made it this long as a species if we didn't sleep with our babies close and respond to their cries.

What I imagine to be unnatural is the fact that we live such solitary, nuclear family lives. We don't have Mom, Sister, Aunt, Neice living across the courtyard to lend a hand. And we have more pressure from the outside world if we work or go to school, or have older children that participate in sports and lessons.

[Peony]

We are so far removed from what older more primitive societies practiced. They went to bed with the sun and got up with it, that's far more sleep then what we do now. The whole family lived in a small area, I could see the entire family heading to bed together, once the sun went down there wasn't much else to do. Women for the most part did not have babies back to back, a woman would have 3-4 children, spaced out naturally 3-4 years by breastfeeding. Women's fertility returns much faster now days in our age of enough food for many. Many cultures do take a midday nap, although those same cultures usually tend to stay up later. Women weren't always lacking in sleep, and if they were, who's to say that they really cared or knew differently. It's not like Ezzo existed then to say that they could get a full night's sleep if they only sleep trained. And many had more pressing things to worry about besides sleeping at night.

[Patchfire]

I think that artificial lighting is a big thing that our bodies were not really designed to handle. Yes, there have been fires and then candles, but the bright electric lights of modern civilization are very very recent, evolutionarily speaking. I think that not only do the impact when we go to bed, as Angela mentioned, but also how our bodies' overall rhythms are set and influenced.

I think that family and community support is another piece of this. We're in a highly individualistic society and everyone has his/her own "job" rather than everyone contributing to the overall well-being of the family & community.

Combine those two factors, and you have a big difference between life as it influenced evolution, and life today.

[laohaire]

Originally Posted by prettypixels

I don't know about "natural" or not, and really, who cares? Natural is a word. The real bottom line is that AP practices are supposed to create happy parents and happy babies.

I totally agree that natural is just a guiding principal. I do think it's relevant here, though, because this is the community for "Natural Family Living." I assume that the community was founded on the belief that we were built to do certain things and behave certain ways, and that we are happiest and healthiest if we follow those ways. Of course each of us vary quite a bit in terms of how much we follow the "natural" guidelines, and it goes without saying that we are very removed from any real natural living.

The principal is worth exploring, IMHO, since we try to follow it in other practices:

- Cosleeping is natural, and we believe it is best.
- Birthing in a squatting position or similar position (not flat on our backs) is natural, and we believe it is best.
- Males naturally have foreskins, and we believe we should not remove them.
- Breastfeeding is natural, formula is not, we believe breastfeeding is best.
- Child-led weaning, however, is debatable as to whether is it natural...

So if we generally believe the natural practice is best, I thought it was worth exploring what would be natural in terms of sleeping.

[Celery]

What's unnatural is having only one or two people to do the night time parenting. Children are not meant to be raised by one or two people in isolation. That's not how we evolved.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

I agree with most of what people have said. Our societal evolution has far outstripped our biological evolution. So if we are talking natural, in the biological sense, our bodies and that of our babies are meant to cosleep, yet our society often doesn't allow us to do so to the extent that mommies are actually reaping as much of the benefits as babies. But, hey, evolutionarily, we want what is best for our offspring, so....

[mothragirl]

Originally Posted by Celery

What's unnatural is having only one or two people to do the night time parenting. Children are not meant to be raised by one or two people in isolation. That's not how we evolved.

yep! natural would be living with/near extended family, having grandmas, mothers, aunts, sisters, etc around to help with child rearing. you'd be awake and working in the daytime and sleep after dark.

[neveryoumindthere]

wouldnt kids be running around and playing outside more too? rather than cooped up ALL . DAY. LONG..

i think being outside, especially when the sun is high helps to regulate their melatonin levels..

i'm actually working on have a schedule more like what our prophetic traditions suggest.which is getting up a little before sunrise, napping noonish and sleeping soon after sunset..the past 2 days it's been better with the kids sleeping..we're allrefreshed by the time dh comes home rather than at the end of our rope ..

dont know if that makes sense..we've had a rough couple months in the sleep department

[riverscout]

Originally Posted by momtosimon

DH and I have been watching Lost on DVD and I find myself fantasizing of being on an island where all I have to do is take care of my baby and go to sleep when the sun sets.

That is so funny that you mentioned that. I thought I was the only one thinking about this when I watched Claire on Lost. All she really has to do is take care of the baby. She has tons of people around to basically take care of most everything else and to help out with the baby whenever she needs it. She is not driving around town all day running errands to gather food and supplies, taking baby to playgroup and gymboree for some social interaction that is sorely lacking at home, trying to maintain her household all by herself, or staying up late at night watching tv and surfing the net. She and the rest of the survivors are basically living a much more natural and normal lifestyle from an evolutionary standpoint. I was thinking it might be kind of nice. Ok so there are creepy mysterious things in the jungle that kill people, and some crazy people kidnapped her too, but that is a different story. Also, they never show her nursing the baby or I've completely missed it if they have. She even left him to go on an adventure for like a couple of days. How does this kid eat?

[bbsc]

If I don't go to bed when my son does, I do wake up feeling groggy and crabby. A longer total time in bed makes up for inturrupted sleep, for me at least!

[425lisamarie]

Well, I could go on and on about how much we sacrificed to stay by family... DH is an architect, we have always been well to do, blah blah, have always had chances to move out of state and so on, but we don't. Our family is first and foremost. I'd never say we have to really do without, but for a short while we weren't even sure if we'd be employed!! We have an IDEAL living arangement for children:

We live barely a 10 min drive from my parents, and about equal from my 2 year younger sister and her boyfriend. DH leaves the house for work about 10:30-11 and gets home at about 7:30 (now has a long commute but we're building a house and he'll be home a little earlier after that). My mom works till 4:30 and comes over every single day till about 6:30-7. My dad comes for a lunch break sometime between 12 and 1 for an hour. I always have time to fix meals/put down baby for nap without leaving the other.

Now mind you we ALL make sacrifices/live maybe a slightly different "quality" of life as some may call it, then we really have to given our education and financial qualifications. By we I mean my family specifically...not people in general. Family is number one to us, period. DH and I share night stuff. DS is very stuck to me at night, so he gets up with the littlest most the time.

We love our lifestyle. Yeah sometimes we stay up a little too late because we miss one on one time together, but that's not too much. Then on the weekends sometimes I go to mom and dad's with kids and DH sleeps in a little on saturday.

I think a lot of people could be in the position to live more "natural," in the family sort of sense....but it does require sacrifice and sometimes not being able to fix your hair or watch much TV.

[North_Of_60]

What we are lacking in this society is a sense of community. We don't have a house/village full of extended family all taking care of the children. How many women here take care of their babies AND older children, PLUS go grocery shopping, cook the meals, take care of the home, etc? THAT is not natural. We are not meant to do everything, and of course, we pay for it with our lack of sleep.

Having sleep issues wouldn't be so bad if I could rest assured that when I got up in the morning that grandma was going to take the baby while I did laundry and took a nap. But alas, that ain't gunna happen. :