How to transform your perception of your baby's sleep
When we perceive our baby to have a “sleep problem” then we’re more likely to feel stressed and get frustrated with them, and we’re also more likely to question our abilities as a parent.
Sleep is an essential need, and without it, we can quickly become exhausted and burnt out. After all, sleep deprivation is a form of torture because it can have an immediate physical and psychological impact.
As new parents, there’s nothing we can do to avoid sleepless nights. We’re thrust into parenthood and left to figure things out for ourselves, not only are we juggling the needs of our new baby, but we’re also trying to take care of our own basic needs, and we’re doing all of this whilst trying to get some sleep to avoid exhaustion.
I spoke with Infant Sleep Consultant, Kerry Secker, on my podcast about the first night she spent at home with her baby. Before becoming a parent, Kerry had been a nanny for 20 years, and then transitioned into sleep consultancy, helping parents gently navigate their little one's sleep, so she entered into parenthood with a wealth of experience. When I asked Kerry about the first night at home with her baby, she said,
It was wild! I just didn’t expect it. I remember sitting on the sofa with a crying baby thinking, “she’s just not got the memo, I’m a sleep consultant, what’s happening, why is she not asleep?” It was really, really hard.
🎙️ Listen to the full episode with Kerry Secker
📺 Watch the full episode with Kerry Secker
The first night is a unique experience, but the silver lining is that it gets easier. I’m not saying the sleepless nights stop, far from it, but as we get to know our baby, we start understanding them and how best we can support them through the night.
One of the most beneficial things for me as a parent is to take the time to understand what’s developmentally age-appropriate and what’s safe regarding our baby’s sleep. Once my wife and I had awareness, we grew in confidence and became empowered to make decisions that were right for us, our baby and our family.
My experience with baby sleep.
When our first, Luca was born we had no idea what sleep would look like for our family. We took it day by day and one sleepless night after the other. Luca loved to be rocked to sleep, he loved to be held and kept close whilst he was sleeping. He was 18 months old before ever sleeping through the night.
Luca slept on his surface in our room for the first 6 months, room-sharing with your baby is recommended by both the NHS and AAP, for at least the first 6 months of a baby’s life. Once the 6 months had passed, Laura was still breastfeeding so we decided to keep Luca in with us. This continued for another 12 months and by 18 months, it became our new normal. We were all getting the sleep we needed and Luca was sleeping through the night consistently, so everyone was winning.
Laura and I decided quite quickly that we’d continue co-sleeping until it stopped working for us, we figured, “Why enter a world of stress and frustration if everyone is happy and getting their sleep?” I fully appreciate we were lucky to both be on the same page, this isn’t always the case which is why partners must communicate as often as possible.
We ended up co-sleeping with Luca for 4 and a half years, right up until Mia was born. Our co-sleeping setup evolved with what we deemed safe based on Luca’s age. From the Next2Me crib to a larger cot attached to the bed, to me digging out my dusty toolbox, opening the cot up and raising the base so the cot mattress was aligned with our mattress, right through to buying a gigantic king-sized bed for us all.
We were often asked “When is he going to have his room?” to which we’d reply “He has his room, he just doesn’t sleep in there yet”. We’ve always ensured Luca had his room, but as our setup was working we didn’t see any point in forcing anything.
When Mia was a few days old, Luca asked, or should I say demanded he sleep in his room because Mia’s crying was “annoying”. It was a huge moment, and quite emotional when he said, “I’m going to sleep in my room tonight!”. He quickly fell in love with having his own space and we worked with him to ensure he made it his own. Of course, there was a transitional period, Laura and I would need to lay with him at times during the night and he’d often pop back into our bed, but it wasn’t long before he was sleeping consistently and happily in his room. Our door is always open, literally! So should Luca need to jump back in with us if he’s having a nightmare or just wants a snuggle, then he’s more than welcome to do so.
Society’s quest for independence.
In today's society, we’re obsessed with independence. We expect our babies to sleep through the night, to self-soothe, and to sleep independently. It’s as if we want our babies to be independent as quickly as possible. When reaching out to parents about their baby’s sleep, we found that there’s a huge gap between parental expectations and biological norms when it comes to our baby’s sleep, and this brings lots of undue stress to both the parents and their babies.
If we take co-sleeping for example, this isn’t the norm in the Western world, so for us, when people heard that we were co-sleeping with our 4-year-old there was a level of judgement. There seems to be the association that if you co-sleep, you’ll raise a dependent and needy child when that’s far from the case. Spoiler alert: Luca is now 6 years old and he’s just as independent as the next 6-year-old.
We can’t force our kids to be independent. Independence naturally evolves from dependence.
When we nurture and respond to our baby's needs we’re creating that dependency, and when we allow our child to depend on us, we give them the confidence they need to grow into independent little ones. This is something I’m going to explore throughout this chapter with Lyndsey Hookway, Lyndsey has worked with infants, children and families for almost 20 years. Lyndsey has a background in paediatric and public health nursing, she’s published many books about infant sleep and she’s the co-founder and clinical director of the Holistic Sleep Coaching Program.
Our expectations matter.
Often parents proudly share when their baby is ‘sleeping through the night’, and I get it, if your baby is making it through the night without needing help to stitch those sleep cycles together, then it can feel like a huge win, it’s as if there’s light at the end of the very long tunnel. But when parents shout about their baby’s sleep, it can leave the majority of parents feeling like they’re failing. I think this quest to get our babies to sleep independently starts way before they are born. Think back to when you were expecting your baby, or maybe you’re expecting a little one right now, I’m sure you’ve heard,
Sleep now while you can!
These types of comments can plant a seed of dread in the minds of expecting parents. As soon as your baby is born, this comment will change to something like,
Are they good for you through the night?!
Do you have a good sleeper?
Do you have a good sleeper?
Traditionally we’ve seen our baby’s sleep as a ‘problem that needs to be solved’, we even frame rocking our babies off to sleep as a ‘battle’. In Lyndsey Hookway’s book “Let’s Talk About Your New Family’s Sleep”, she shares,
The truth is, sleep does not need to feel like a battleground. You are not fighting a sleep war, and your baby is not a sleep theif! Sadly, too many people try to measure their ‘success’ as a parent by objective and quantifiable parameters like how much or how ‘well’ their baby sleeps.
In a large-scale survey of 5,700 children from Finland, researchers found that three-month-olds woke and needed to be rocked back to sleep an average of 2.2 times a night. Just to give you an idea of how vastly different the night wakings were between those three-month-old babies, this ranged anywhere from 0 to 15 wakings per night. Almost 40% of the parents of eight-month-old babies said they thought their child had sleep problems. The issue is, that when we perceive our baby to have a “sleep problem” then we’re more likely to feel stressed and get frustrated with them, and we’re also more likely to question our abilities as a parent.
Why are so many people reporting problems with sleep? Well, it’s the conflict between what’s developmentally age-appropriate, and our own needs and expectations as parents. As Lyndsey said, we see aspects of our baby’s sleep as a measure of our success as a parent:
Are they sleeping through the night?
Do they know how to self-soothe?
Are they sleeping in their own room?
Rest assured, these things have nothing to do with how great you are as a parent.
The truth is, there’s no magical formula when it comes to infant sleep, every baby is different, they all have their own unique needs and temperaments, therefore they all require a unique approach when it comes to their sleep.
We quickly learnt this when Mia was born at the end of 2022. As mentioned, it took Luca 18 months before he ever slept through the night. Mia, although it was short-lived, was 5 months old when she first slept through the night. My wife and I were in shock when one evening Mia fell asleep by 7:30 p.m. and didn’t wake again until 6 a.m. In the morning we looked at each other in shock and said, “Did Mia just sleep through the night?”. Parenting achievement unlocked! Of course, it wasn’t that Mia had magically fallen asleep for 7 hours, she still slept in short cycles just like every other baby. But based on her unique temperament at the time, she was able to stitch those cycles without any help from us.
My research on parenting expectations.
I want to take a moment to focus on expectations, or more specifically, the unrealistic expectations we have when it comes to sleep. I reached out to my followers to try and gain an understanding of the expectations they had of sleep going into parenthood. I wanted to try and unpick if a) the majority felt they had unrealistic expectations of what sleep would look like and b) if this was the case, how could things have been different. I asked,
📊 If they felt their expectations of ‘normal baby sleep’ were realistic going into parenthood, of the 1,126 parents that answered, 69% said they felt their expectations were unrealistic.
Of those who said their expectations were unrealistic, I asked what they thought could have better prepared them for those sleepless nights, the results were:
More awareness around normal baby sleep - 62%
More help through the night - 22%
Nothing - 14%
Other (*) - 2%
(*) - The most popular ‘other’ responses were more awareness around co-sleeping and how to bed-share safely.
Almost 70% of parents felt their expectations were unrealistic, and of those, over 60% felt more awareness around baby sleep would have better prepared them. When we’re aware of the science behind our baby’s sleep, we can shift our perspective, allowing us to set realistic expectations, reduce frustrations, and begin to make informed decisions about our baby's sleep. I appreciate having a fresh perspective doesn’t give us more sleep, but it does put us in a much better position to move forward and better manage our own emotions and frustrations through those sleepless nights.
Being able to set realistic expectations for our child is something that we can carry with us through our parenting journey. Matthew Melmed who’s executive director at Zero To Three shared,
Having realistic expectations for a child’s ability is critical for supporting healthy development and minimising stress for both parents and that child.
Zero To Three facilitates ground-breaking research and provides resources to help parents thrive through the first 3 years, I’ve leaned on their resources so often during my parenting journey. Developing the ability to set realistic age-appropriate expectations for our kids is something that will help us throughout our parenting journey.
Conclusions.
In conclusion, embracing realistic expectations for your baby's sleep in the first year is crucial. By understanding and accepting what is developmentally appropriate, such as not expecting a newborn to sleep through the night independently, parents can reduce stress and better appreciate the small milestones. This mindset encourages a more positive and manageable experience, ultimately making life easier for both you and your little one.
I’ll be exploring more about baby sleep in future Feel Good Fatherhood posts, and diving into specific developmental age-appropriate expectations. So keep your eyes peeled for that.
I appreciate you reading this post,
Tom Piccirilli, Founder of The Dad Vibes