Babies develop affection at different rates, but when is it a cause for concern?
From the moment you find out you’re pregnant, there is sleep advice flying left, right and centre. You will have people telling you horror stories of their babies who never slept, well-meaning strangers giving you advice on putting your baby to sleep and people basically warning you to never rock or feed your baby to sleep or you will ‘spoil’ them and that will damage them. The pressure surrounding sleep for new mums IS HUGE, it’s confusing and overwhelming and I believe sets you up to feel like a failure.
I’ve actually come to really dislike the conversation around babies self-settling as I feel like it places so much expectation and pressure on our little babies who may or may not be able to or ready to put themselves to sleep without their mama close by. Sleeping through the night and any type of sleep schedule is truly an adult expectation that not all babies can live up to, absolutely some can but not every baby will and that’s the reality.
Unfortunately, what I see every day and what mums tell me is that the pressure of this milestone makes them feel like a failure, makes them anxious and stressed if their baby needs to be fed, held, rocked or cuddled to sleep. But the reality is for some that’s the most natural way and sometimes it’s the only way they will fall asleep.
If you need to get some sleep, do what you need to do and forget what Susan at mother’s group told you about spoiling your baby because unless Susan is coming over at 2 am to put your baby back to sleep then it’s not her business. And seriously if you look at it biologically our breast milk contains sleepy melatonin hormones for a reason, it helps them fall asleep.
