mother and baby “talk” to each other almost constantly. Because a newborn baby needs to feed often and around the clock, mother and baby stay in close contact. Breastfeeding promotes eye contact and skin-to-skin contact, both of which are inherent in the breastfeeding experience. Through breastfeeding, a mother

Sleeping

learns her baby’s cues and signs for hunger, as well as other needs for closeness that are often

“like a baby”

met through the breastfeeding experience.

does not mean long

By feeding on demand, a mother not only

stretches of deep,

establishes an adequate milk supply but also
uninterrupted sleep. teaches her baby that she will sensitively and
effectively respond to the baby’s fluctuating
needs. Through that awareness she sets the
stage for her baby’s ability to feel fully nurtured
and secure. Over time, this intense need will
lessen as her baby moves toward greater and
greater independence, but the foundation
of understanding and communication
between mother and child will remain. This
is correlated with research that finds that
breastfeeding mothers are more sensitive, and
shows a link between attachment security and
breastfeeding.

64

Research shows that mothers who cosleep are not only more aware of and responsive to their infants’ needs, but also that babies who have coslept regularly have the greatest levels of self-reliance and social independence.

WHY NIGHTTIME INTERACTION MATTERS Nighttime interaction plays an equally important role in the development of secure attachment. There is perhaps no aspect of new parenthood as fraught with confusion and stress as infant sleep. Mothers are often judged by how “well” their babies sleep, and, in the haze of fatigue, they often wonder how they should be encouraging sleep. In infancy, sleep has distinct patterns and features different from those of adult sleep. Sleeping “like a baby” does not mean long stretches of deep, uninterrupted sleep; instead, it means shorter sleep cycles, a significant amount of time spent in rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, delayed establishment of a circadian (24-hour) rhythm,

65

and a sleep mechanism that isn’t fully formed until between three years old⁶⁶ and five years old. ⁶⁷

Night waking in infancy is not a bad thing, especially from the point of view of survival, optimal development, and emotional connection. Night waking appears to serve several protective, reparative, and attachment functions. Infants enter REM sleep first, have shorter sleep cycles, and spend much greater amounts of time in light/REM sleep; by thus

68

spending less time in deep sleep, they get greater brain stimulation, ^{69, 70} and more access to breastmilk and maternal presence. ⁷¹

Because our western culture strongly favors independence, it is natural to look for advice to increase the amount of time our babies spend asleep. Many sources of advice on this front advocate sleep training. However, sleep training overlooks a baby’s psychological and physiological well-being, addressing instead a baby’s behavioral repertoire and using behavior-change interventions to effect change. Babies are unable to make sense of a parent who is attentive at certain times of the day but unresponsive at sleep times. Attachment research shows that this sort of inconsistent or unresponsive care is associated with insecure attachment. ⁷² Additionally, neurological studies show that the pain of emotional separation registers the same way as does physical pain. ⁷³ The pain a baby experiences at being left alone to cry is clearly quite intense.

When children express distress but are met with nonresponsiveness or rejection, they learn to divert the expression of their basic needs in order to preserve some sort of connection, and thus lose authentic communication with their parent. It is therefore by meeting our babies’

74 needs that they learn healthy independence, including sleep independence. In fact, research shows that mothers who cosleep are not only more aware of and responsive to their infants’ needs, but also that babies who have coslept

75 regularly have the greatest levels of self-reliance and social independence. ⁷⁶