Babycalming - by Nicky Neighbour
Nicky Neighbour is a trainee Antenatal Teacher, East Lothian Branch
I recently attended a study day on Babycalming, facilitated by Caroline Deacon, aimed at Antenatal Teachers, Breastfeeding Counsellors and Postnatal leaders. Caroline is a journalist and NCT breastfeeding counsellor who has written articles and books on parenting, feeding and sleeping, including ‘Babycalming’.
Caroline’s approach was to encourage us to consider our experiences of parenting and what influenced our parenting choices; what influences and pressures parents experience; and why people adopt particular parenting styles. We also considered how babies behave in a social, biological and evolutionary context and how these behaviours might influence our choices in parenting.
Parents can be divided into different types – those who are ambivalent about birth and parenting and are open to ideas, those who take a more natural approach and respond to needs, and those who feel that baby should adapt to the household needs. The type of person we are will influence the parenting style we adopt.
A new baby’s needs are very basic – they want to be warm, safe and fed – and they tend to cry, and cannot sleep if one or more of these needs is not being met. These needs may conflict with the needs of the parents or household, but meeting them should form the basis of early parenting decisions.
One of the early issues that causes anxiety in new parents is how much their new baby should sleep. Understanding sleep cycles is very helpful when considering how to help a baby sleep. We all sleep in cycles, waking briefly as each cycle ends but where an adult can easily go back to sleep without help, babies need help until they are several months old. An adult’s sleep cycle tends to last between 90 and 100 minutes whereas a baby’s sleep cycle lasts about 60 minutes.
If a mother sleeps close to her baby, their sleep cycles begin to synchronise and they both reach the end of their cycles together, naturally rousing at the same time. This means that, for example, night feeds can be successfully carried out without mum or baby fully waking or being disturbed. However, if mother and baby sleep too far apart this synchronisation does not happen and night feeds can lead to more disturbance for everyone.
You will often be asked about your baby ‘sleeping through the night’. Remember, an adult goes through five sleep cycles in a night, which amount to eight hours. A baby’s sleep cycle is 60 minutes, so a full nights sleep is five hours, usually between midnight and 5 am. Your baby may be six months old before the sleep cycle begins to lengthen and she is able to sleep for longer, and get herself back to sleep after waking.
Caroline also encouraged us to look at what current research tells us about the impact of our parenting decisions on both the short- and long-term well-being of our children. These decisions may be influenced by our own experiences of being parented, by the type of birth we had, and by other people around us.
As a consequence of the way we live today, we tend to take our advice from books, the internet, friends rather than from observing others, because we are not regularly exposed to other people bringing up their children (until we have already had our own children). There is a great deal of advice on offer with conflicting information about routines versus baby-led care and it can be difficult to establish what is evidence based and what is anecdotal or based on personal experience.
When trying to establish what is fact and what is anecdote you may want to consider, amongst other things:
babies are born nine months too early and are therefore wholly dependent on their mothers until at least nine months old
babies cry because they need one of their basic needs to be met
mammals who are meant to be left alone tend to be part of a litter (eg cats and dogs)
feeding routines are based on 1930’s research into calves
where a baby’s needs are not met the baby may experience attachment difficulties later in life.
The message I took from the day was that our own attitudes and beliefs, which tend to inform our parenting decisions, can have a major impact on how our babies sleep. Before making any decisions we should take time to look at what the short- and long-term implications might be, and then make an informed decision.