We were on a recent trip with extended family. My baby just turned ten months old – still completely a baby in every way. She sleeps in the bed with us at night and for naps.
The second night on this vacation, my baby woke up at 2:30am and stayed awake – wide wake – until 4:00am.
I can count on one hand the amount of times she has done this in her entire life. Not often at all. She has always slept well when sleeping right next to me at night.
On this particular night, for whatever reason, she woke up and stayed awake. She was happy, she didn’t cry at all. She just climbed over us, nursed while moving her feet and turning her little body all over my face, and happily patted and squealed at the wall next to the bed.
I’ll admit, I could feel myself getting irritated after about an hour. I was so tired, and I knew I couldn’t get up with her because right outside our bedroom door there were 4 people sleeping on the couch and on an airbed on the floor. I didn’t want to wake them up too.
Eventually, around an hour and a half later, she fell back asleep. We all slept great until morning when she woke up around 7:30.
While retelling the night’s events to everyone the next morning, a well-meaning family member told my baby (in a sweet, motherese tone), “Did you stay up in the middle of the night? You were a naughty girl last night!”
I was really shocked they would say that, in fact I just about spit out my nettle/oatstraw infusion I was drinking. Did I hear right? Did this person just call my INFANT “naughty”? She’s a baby, she can’t control when she wakes up! She wasn’t trying to bother us, and she certainly, absolutely was NOT being naughty.
I really didn’t know how to react in the moment, and shortly thereafter this family member walked away. I immediately told my baby,
“You were not naughty, I know you didn’t mean to stay awake last night, it’s okay and I am not mad at all.”
As I’ve thought about this conversation over the past week, it still really bothers me. I absolutely know that this family member loves my baby and that they mean well. I even know that if I asked them or brought it up, they would probably apologize and say that they didn’t mean to say that.
“ So WHY did they call my baby “naughty” in that moment? Why did that thought enter their head, and they decided to voice it out loud?”
I think it runs deeper than we even know. I think it’s conditioning deep inside us that tells us to believe that babies are capable of being manipulative. That when they cry, they are trying to “trick us” into giving them what they want, and that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to “give in” to what they want.
A study done by the university of Michigan, surveyed 3000 adults. The study’s results revealed that an alarming number (57 percent) of parents believe that a 6 month old infant can be spoiled; and 44% of parents surveyed believe that picking up a three-month old baby every time they cry, will spoil the infant. Granted, this is an older study, so I sincerely hope that parents today are not so misinformed. But why would things be different now? This is cultural lie passed down through generations and it is damaging to believe it.
Even if we know now thanks to science that babies’ brains are not developed enough to be able to be manipulative, culturally it has been passed down that our babies are able to plan a course of action designed to trigger us and that we have to be on our guard or else we will give in to their “master plan” and muahaha the baby will win and we will create a “spoiled” child.
News flash.
Babies cannot be naughty.
Babies cannot be manipulative.
Babies cannot be spoiled.
Babies cry for what they need.
Babies need us.
Babies are pure, unadulterated, and perfect little beings.
Babies NEED love, attention, touch, and gentleness.
Science has shown that the parent child relationship is biologically complex, with many different chemical and hormonal reactions taking place in a parent when they hear their baby cry. Studies prove that we are biologically hardwired (through a release of hormones) to answer our baby’s cries and tend to their needs.
Studies also prove that a baby’s brain is not developed enough to be manipulative or sneaky in any way, shape or form.
So next time a family member calls your baby “naughty”, or says, “If you keep picking her up and holding her, you’re gonna spoil her”, you can confidently inform them that science says otherwise. That you are the parent and you know what your baby needs.
And guess what? We realized that the bed all three of us were sleeping in was a Double, instead of a Queen like we were used to. My husband moved to an airbed on the floor the next night and my baby slept perfectly for every single night after that. We were all just too cramped in the bed and she couldn’t move around at all. Problem solved.
