‘You’re up the next night, and the next, doing the baby dance’
Nothing can really prepare you for the tiredness of parenthood. No two nights are the same, and when you get three hours of sleep it feels like you’ve slept for a fairy-tale hundred years. You think, I’ve cracked this baby sleep thing – it will only get better from here.
Except you’re up the next night. And the next. You’re doing the baby dance – the one you used to do in clubs but now do in milk-stained pyjamas because it might, just possibly, help your baby to sleep. ‘Help!’ you cry, as you shimmy. ‘What am I doing wrong?’
You are not doing anything wrong. You are just learning to be a parent and your little one is learning to be a human. However, there are things we can do that help (more than the shimmying).
Sleeping like a baby means something very different to how babies actually sleep and has confused generations of parents. So, how do they sleep?
Most adults have a sleep cycle that lasts around 100 minutes. During that time, we go through various stages of sleep, ranging from light to active to quiet and, finally, deep. At the end of a sleep cycle, an adult turns over and goes back to sleep (the mental equivalent of pushing the snooze button) or they wake up. Then press the snooze button.
Babies are not born with the sleep cycles we take for granted.
They are much lighter sleepers than adults but need sleep more than we do. It’s crucial for their physical and mental development, helping to establish connections in the brain, which, in turn, helps with language, reasoning and relationships. Babies haven’t mastered the snooze button yet.