If sleep is so important. Why didn’t we evolve to have our newborns and toddlers not destroy our sleep? Are parents sacrificed for the well being of the kiddos?
sleep deprived and frustrated father
sleep deprived and frustrated father
A lot of people might not like my answer, but here it goes. I have a 2,5 month old daughter, and my wife breastfeeds her. During the night, I don't wake up because she immediately gives her milk when she wakes up. There are a few things evolution gave us for support (correct me if these 'facts' are wrong): - When women breastfeed, they get some hormone that can put them into REM sleep way faster. - Men are not as sensitive for sounds during their sleep as women.
So evolution wise, this was probably mainly a mothers sacrifice. This lets the other, more physically strong parent (when that was still important) function at 100%.
In these modern times, work is divided and so both parents divide all family and money work, and so also share the sacrifice of sleep deprivation.
Would be interested to hear negative experiences.
With our first child, I slept in another room altogether to get the sleep needed for work. With two small ones it’s much harder. I either get woken up by a karate heel-kick to my nose or just the horrible feeling of a wet bed.
Interesting factoid from the fascinating Legal Systems Very Different From Ours: the Kaale (a Gypsy tribe in Finland) don't recognise the parent-child relationship at all, because reproduction is ritually unclean; the facts of reproduction cannot be admitted. Instead, a mother leaves the tribe to bear her baby, and returns with it, whereupon the baby becomes the entire kin-group's responsibility. Sounds to me like a good way to let parents have some sleep, by batching up the group's children!
At least the kid won't die from starvation and diseases. So that's good. But you have to go to work 40-60 hour every week away from your beloveds to a place where sleep is forbidden. So that's bad.