Pack sleeping - The advantages of the family bed
My husband was at the daycare for a development talk and I don't even remember exactly what the question was, but it was about sleeping. Anyway, my husband told me that our son doesn't sleep alone and that we are a pack. That's where this title came from in the first place.
Well, admittedly, the three of us are rather a very small pack. But the title hits so quite well, what I would like to say. At the beginning of the article I would like to describe you first the term. A pack is a group, which is closed and individual, because all members of the pack know each other and are not simply interchangeable. I think that sounds good in connection with a family. I would actually describe our family as a small pack.
Sopack sleeping, or co-sleeping, is nothing more than sleeping in a shared family bed. I am very much in favor of the family bed because it has many benefits. When Noah was little, it was very convenient that I could nurse him at night without having to get up. But most of the time I didn't even wake up, he nursed himself at night and I hardly noticed, we had become so in tune with each other. I only noticed that he had to have breastfed in between, because otherwise my breasts would certainly have been about to burst. Even when I stopped breastfeeding, the family bed had a very big advantage for us, because we were always with our child when he woke up and could calm him down immediately. And children, just like adults regularly wake up at night and make sure they are safe. So with children, this usually means that they are not alone. The evolutionary inner program here still has a big impact on us and our babies. In the past, it would have meant mortal danger for our baby to somehow lie alone at night. After all, dangerous predators could come against which a baby would have quite little chance.
The quick calming also has a positive effect on bonding and also on brain development. If we look at the pyramid of needs of the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, it quickly becomes clear which prerequisites must be given so that a child, or generally every person, can learn.
Learning is one of the cognitive needs, with physiological needs, safety needs and social needs below. First of all, all physical needs such as hunger, thirst or excretion must be satisfied. Incidentally, excretion can be satisfied in a particularly species-appropriate and simple way, especially in the family bed, if the babies are held at night over a bowl placed next to the bed. I had already mentioned breastfeeding to satisfy hunger and thirst. One step above physiological needs are safety needs. After all, a baby usually only feels safe when it is not alone. This then also covers the social needs, which are another level higher. The baby is in constant contact with its environment, with its mother and father. Only then, still after the individual needs, cognitive needs can be satisfied.
This also shows why the Ferber method, which recommends letting babies cry out according to a certain pattern so that they learn to sleep alone, simply cannot work. A baby that cries most likely has physiological needs, but definitely safety needs, it does not feel safe. However, as I just described, learning is not possible at all without a sense of safety. I strongly recommend meeting a baby's needs as soon as possible and not letting a child cry, because this also has a negative effect on self-efficacy, but that's another topic.
I have now described to you, for me, the greatest advantages of the family bed. But of course there are also situations in which I clearly advise against the family bed. This includes, among other things, the alcohol consumption of a parent, if he wants to sleep in bed with. That is simply too dangerous for the baby. In addition, both parents should really feel comfortable with it. Otherwise it really makes little sense, because then at least one would always be irritated, which would also have a negative effect on the whole atmosphere.
I also have to honestly say that I can't and couldn't always report so much positively about the family bed as I do here today. My son slept in his bed and even in his own room for a while because we just didn't know any better. We were told that he would get too used to it and then never be able to sleep on his own. Not to mention that at the latest with his own girlfriend he doesn't want to sleep in our bed anymore, which adult among us would rather sleep alone than with his partner in the same bed. It is very sad how much old views here still have influence on us and suppress our intuition. Our intuition is usually to have our baby with us as much as possible and to calm him down as quickly as possible. Apart from that, I am also sometimes annoyed by the family bed, when my son is sleeping crosswise again, I have felt stroking his back half the night or constantly woken up by something. Probably without our pack sleeping, however, I would be much more annoyed.
Image sources:The cover image comes from Pixabay.
The image of the feet under the blanket is a photo by Simon Matzinger and comes from unsplash.com.
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