The movies always portray the same scene of that exhausted new mom desperate for reprieve after the birth of her new baby; she is carefully disheveled, as only movie stars are, and would leave her baby with just about anyone for an hour or two of shut-eye.
This is a fairly accurate depiction of real life for many new moms, but what if I told you it didn’t have to be?
One of the many things that Dr. Weston A. Price, “The Charles Darwin of Nutrition”, learned during his experiences with traditional culture was that primitive people’s ( people living traditionally off the beaten path ) babies never cried.
Never?
Never. When I heard that I just KNEW I had to dig deeper and learn all I could from these primitive women whose wisdom apparently surpassed most modern-day parenting advice.
I was determined to have a relaxed baby that slept through the night this time around, without any stress, and you know what? I achieved just that! From Kai’s third night earthside he has slept peacefully through the night, and I’ll share with you the 3 things that I believe can make all the difference:
#1) Eat Fat!
Don’t let anyone tell you that what you eat doesn’t make or break your milk! If you are what you eat, then your breast milk certainly is as well.
For example, if I eat foods that are high in sugar or low in nutrition before our nighttime “nursy num-num”, Baby Kai sleeps lightly and is sometimes even cranky – not typical behavior for him at all. Conversely on the days and nights that I eat nutritionally dense high fat meals, he almost always sleeps for a full uninterrupted 8 – 9 hours at night.
Keeping your milk-fat content high will keep Baby full, nutritionally satisfied and primed for a good long sleep. Remember, a crying baby is often a hungry baby.
*Note that trans ( bad ) fats, or hydrogenated oils, actually decrease the fat content in your milk*
#2) Limit Baby’s screen time!
As a matter of fact, research supports a parents decision to give baby no screen time, television or other, before two years of age for developmental reasons. Specifically in relationship to sleep however, the brightness of electronic screens such as smart phones and iPads are relative to that of the noon-day sun. You can see how this can be confusing for a new little earthling!
Exposure to this kind of unnatural lighting at strange times of the day, particularly in the evening hours, will mess with Baby’s natural circadian rhythm and his ability to sleep through the night.
#3) Skip sleep training!
Sleep training is unnatural and creates feelings of insecurity, isolation and abandonment, as Baby does not yet possess the ability to self-soothe.
When baby is left to “cry it out”, the eventual silence that ensues is no more than a survival instinct to protect an abandoned baby from discovery by a predator.
For obvious reasons if you are raising children naturally you probably don’t want to employ a traumatic last resort survival instinct as an early sleep strategy. The fact is the baby lulled to sleep in a state that is natural and comfortable to humans will sleep sounder and longer than the baby who cried himself to sleep in the dark alone.
Don’t take my word for it! Eat really well, skip screens, love on that baby and see what happens!
<3 <3 <3
