Awakening at night comes from an animal instinct

• April 25, 2024

There are mammalian pups that need to be all the time with their mother , on top of her or following her at a short distance, and others that remain hidden, in a nest or burrow, waiting for her mother to return.

To know what type an animal belongs to, it is enough to observe how it behaves breeding when his mother leaves. Those who have to be always together are immediately put to cry , (or make noise equivalent in its kind) until his mother returns. A baby goose, for example, although it has water and food nearby, does not eat or drink, but only cries until its parents return, or until the death . Without his parents, he would soon die anyway, so he must exhaust all his Energy in tears to come back. And he must start crying immediately, as soon as he separates, because the later he does it the farther he will be, and therefore it will be harder for him to hear him.

On the other hand, a bunny or a kitten, when his mother leaves, remain very still and quiet. That separation is the norm! in their species, and if they started crying they could attract other animals, which is always dangerous . How does your child react when you leave him in the crib and move away? If "she starts to cry as if they were killed", it means that, in our species, it is normal for children to be continuously, 24 hours , in contact with his mother .

And it is not hard to imagine that 50 thousand years ago, when we did not have houses, nor clothes, nor furniture, separating from their mother meant death. Can you imagine a naked baby in the field, outdoor , exposed to! sun, rain, wind and vermin, only for eight hours, while her mother "works" picking fruits and roots? Not even an hour could survive in those circumstances. In the times of our ancestors, the babies were 24 hours in arms , and only separated from their mother to be a few moments in the arms of his father, his grandmother or his brothers. And when they started to walk, they did it around their mother, and both the mother and the child looked at each other continuously, and they warned each other when they saw that the another was confused.

Nowadays, when you leave your child in the crib, he knows that there is no danger. It wont happen cold , no heat , will not get wet, nor will a wolf eat it. He knows that you are a few meters away, and he will hear you if something happens and he will come at once (or, if you have left home, he knows that someone else has been left behind). guard , listening a few meters).

But your son does not know all that. Our children , when they are born, they are exactly the same as they were born. Just in case, at the slightest separation, they cry as if you were gone forever.Later, when you begin to understand where you are, when you will return and who cares for you, in the meantime, you will begin to tolerate separations more calmly. But there are still a few years left. Almost all of the baby's behavior, which has not yet learned anything, is instinctive, identical to that of our remote ancestors. And the instinctive behavior of the mother also tends to appear, here and there, breaking through our thick layers of culture and education.

Therefore, when you go to the park with your 3-year-old son, both will behave very similarly to their ancestors. You will look at your child almost all the time, and will let you know when you get lost ("come here" "do not go that far"). Your child will also look at you frequently, and if you see her clueless or talking to other people she will be nervous, even angry, and try to get your attention ("Look, Mom, look", "Look what I do", "Look what I have found "...)

We arrived at night. It is a particularly delicate period, because if the child sleeps eight hours, and the mother has left during this time, when she wakes up she can be 7 hours away, and no matter how much she cries, she will not hear it. You have to mount the guard. During the first weeks, our children are so completely helpless that it is their mother who must take charge of maintaining contact. In those rare cultures (like ours) where mother and son do not sleep together, the separation makes the mother very uneasy, and she feels the imperative need to go to see her son every so often. What mother has not come to the crib "to see if it breathes"? Of course she knows she is breathing, of course she knows that nothing is wrong, of course she knows that her husband will laugh at her for having her concern ... but she can not help it, she has to go.

As the child grows, it becomes more independent. That does not mean that I spend more time alone, or that I do things without help, because the human being is a social animal, and it is not normal for him to be alone. For a human being, loneliness is not independence, but abandonment. Independence consists of being able to live in community, expressing our needs to get help from others, and offering our help to meet the needs of others. Now you do not need to check whether your child breathes or not; He will tell you!

As it is becoming independent, it will be he who stands guard. He will wake up about every hour and a half or two hours, and look for his mother. If your mother is next to you, you will smell her, touch her, feel her warmth, maybe blow a little, and she will go back to sleep right away. If her mother is not there, she will cry until she comes. YES mom comes at once, it will calm down quickly. If it takes to come, it will cost a lot to reassure him; will try to stay awake, as a security measure, lest mom lose herself again.

This is where real life does not coincide with books, because mothers have been told that, as their child grows, they will sleep more hours in a row. And many are surprised that it is the opposite. It is not "infantile insomnia", it is not "bad habits", it is simply the normal behavior of children during the first years. A behavior that will disappear by itself, not with "education" or "training", but because the child will grow older and will no longer need the continued presence of his mother.

If every time your child cries, you go, it is encouraging you to be independent, that is, to express your needs to other people and to consider that "the norm" is to be attended to. This will help you to be a self-confident adult and integrated into society.

If when your child cries you let him cry, he is teaching you that his needs are not really important, and that other people "wiser and more powerful" than he can decide better than himself what suits him and what does not. He becomes more dependent, because he depends on the whims of others and does not believe himself important enough to deserve to be heeded.

A happy childhood in a treasure that lasts forever, that no one can ever snatch you. Your child's childhood is now in their hands.

By Dr. Carlos Gonzalez , pediatrician.

Collaboration of Psicoprofiláxis Montaña and ANIPP

Learn more about the issue with our partner organizations //www.anipp.org.mx/ //www.psicoprofilaxis.org/