Of course I know how wonderful and exciting it is for expectant parents to furnish the children's room, including the baby bed. And associated with that, especially with the first child, is the idea that the little one will sleep peacefully in it all night long.
But I believe, and I think we can all agree on this, that no infant will sleep through the night alone in their bed right from the start.
And he shouldn't. What was once seen as a pure reaction of defiance on the part of the baby is actually pure fear.
If our grandparents and probably also parents were encouraged to let the crying baby sleep alone in his bed in his own room so that he would not be pampered and not dance on the parents' noses, today the advice is clearly the opposite .
On the one hand, from a medical point of view: if the infant sleeps in the parents' bed or at least next to them, sudden infant death syndrome, the cause of which is still not clearly clarified, can be better prevented. This way the parents can keep an eye on the little one, and the mother will probably wake up immediately if she hears strange noises. In addition, it is often the case with infants that they breathe irregularly or take pauses for breathing that are too long. But if they sleep directly with their mother, they can feel and hear her breathing, which in turn stimulates their own breathing.
The second important point is basic trust in the parents. It is an incredible change for the newborn to go from the protected, warm environment of the womb to suddenly being alone out in the world. And then you want it to sleep all alone in the dark? No more heart murmurs from her mother, no warm, confined space, but all alone in a dark room. This scares the baby very much and causes him to cry. Not out of spite or to annoy anyone. But because it is his primal instinct to scream when he is afraid or in apparent danger. Like back in the Stone Age, to draw attention to himself so that his parents would take him and not leave him alone, because that would have been his death sentence back then.
If the parents do not respond to this desperate crying, the baby will probably resign at some point and be quiet, but in the process will lose basic trust in its parents. The knowledge that you can always rely 100% on mom and dad is gone. And this will shape the child for the rest of his life and can have various negative effects on his psyche, for example that he will generally have a trust problem.
Therefore, dear parents, both you and your baby will have quieter nights if they sleep with you. As a mother of 3 children who all sleep in bed with me, I can say that we hardly had any nights awake because the babies lay quietly and peacefully next to us.
We couldn't have made a better decision back then, no matter what others thought!
