Early on Tee and I decided that sleep would be our #1 priority as parents. I believe it’s the secret sauce in our family arrangement. Everything is easier with sleep – feeding the baby, maintaining a relationship, going back to work, feeling human.
I’ve written about this before but now, 18 months into this parenting game, I am emphatic: sleep is everything and – bold claim – the parents hold the levers.
Sleep science 101
Humans sleep in cycles. Babies’ sleep cycles are 40 minutes; adults’ are 90 minutes. We all wake up between cycles. Going back to sleep again without being rocked or patted – called ‘self-settling’ – is a skill; it is not innate, it must be learned.
The grand debate among parents is: how and when should a baby learn this skill?
In my circles – and I suspect much of middle-class anglo parent culture – there’s a strong ethos of “do whatever feels right for you”.
Well, Tee and I have strong normative views about sleep, specifically:
(1) The sooner a baby sleeps, the sooner the parents have a chance at a functioning life.
(2) Emily Oster reviewed all the evidence on sleep training and found 1. it works, 2. no harm to babies, 3. benefits for parents.
(3) Based on our experience (sample size of 1) a healthy baby can be sleep trained early.
(4) Everyone should do this
What we did
When Buddy was three weeks old a friend mentioned Tizzie Hall’s book ‘Save Our Sleep’*. We went a little crazy and adopted it whole-heartedly – to crazy results. At eight weeks, we started sleep training . At 12 weeks, Buddy started sleeping through. He is now 18 months and has slept through every night of the past year, no regressions. And when I say sleeping through, I mean 7pm to 7am.
It is hard to fully describe how amazing it is to put your baby to bed at 7pm and know that you have 12 hours of complete freedom, to be an adult, to sleep, to spend time with each other, to go out and about. It makes you feel human, like parenting is not that hard, and like you are so much more than a parent. It is rare and wonderful.
Friends dismissed us and our ‘luck’, warning us to expect sleep regressions (we did so with humility – they never came). We tried to be gracious and sensitive around friends going through sleep hell, tiptoeing around the conversation; if probed, murmuring abstract but effusive gratitude for our ‘unicorn baby’. We watched people turn to sleep training at 6 months, 12 months, having hit breaking point. A year on, we’re honest but still self-deprecating “we’re the monsters who sleep trained at eight weeks”. Friends warn our hypothetical second child will be different.
*My review of Hall’s book here. Pick a system that works for you. Oster found that all of the major sleep training approaches work if you are consistent.
The equal parenting angle
The week that Buddy started sleeping through, I felt my brain switch on like a light bulb – ding! – and I realised I was back. And that if I needed to, I could return to work. Women generally carry the sleep burden in the first two years. Breastfeeding is a logistical reality; the lactating parent has the requisite equipment. Beyond that, we’re quick to accept that a man’s sleep needs to be protected so he can function at paid work. (To be clear: child care is also work. Also what about when both parents are back at paid work?) Sleep is essential for cognitive function and mental health, and women take the biggest hit.
That hit can be shortened, lessened, eliminated via sleep training.
Women who have children are expected to participate in self-abnegation far beyond what is expected of their partners. Self-abnegation is considered a rite of passage, part of motherhood. We hold mothers up as wholesome and angelic, denying themselves for the good of the child. It’s regressive and perpetuates gender stereotypes. Also, I have no interest in self denial. Sure, having a child means there’s a lot of things you can’t do – no different to a significant investment in any endeavour, playing an elite sport, signing a mortgage, joining a religion – long-term commitments of time, money and mental space, all finite resources. But why sacrifice more than you have to?
I want to be open about the ways in which I prioritise my own convenience and mental health. Over several weeks I sat and listened to Buddy cry and did not pick him up. It is the single best decision of my life, narrowly ahead of marrying Tee. I’m not a monster, I’m smart.
I’ve added a summary of our sleep training approach to the Playbook page.