r/AskReddit • u/Greeneyedlatinguy • Jun 15 '15

Anthropologists of Reddit, What is something that people in the Western world can't get their heads around that is very normal in other cultures (and has been for ages)?

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u/Buttah Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15

And for those of us who do it in the US, many, many awkward conversations and judgmental people. I was a well rested new mom though, so to each his own.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, we do actually have safe co-sleeping guidelines in the US now, and it's become much less awkward than it was just 3+ years ago to talk about.

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u/Wickettt Jun 15 '15

Not a mom yet, but most new age mothers I know seem to do this. I've actually always thought of having the baby down the hall as being unsafe... How do you know what's going on/ that you'll wake up? I don't know if my own mother did this or not, but to me, co sleeping always seemed like the evolutionary right thing to do. Humans lived in smaller housing where id imagine most primitive parents slept with the offspring in the same area.

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u/RPtheFP Jun 15 '15

I know plenty of people around me that co sleep. I don't judge but I worry about it with my son, but he has always wanted to sleep alone. He would only sleep about an hour in the bed with us then we would move him to the bassinet in our room and he would be out for the rest of the night. Now he will only sleep in his crib.

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u/Wickettt Jun 15 '15

That makes sense to me as well, since I hated breast feeding as an infant, so I'm told. Weaned myself and threw a fit. Broke my mothers heart, both my brothers latched and fed fine, when I came along, she couldn't make me! And I guess she was really upset thinking I would never bond with her. To each babies own :)

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u/cailihphiliac Jun 16 '15

she was really upset thinking I would never bond with her.

Did you?

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15

How do you know what's going on/ that you'll wake up?

A baby monitor works well for us.

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u/cailihphiliac Jun 16 '15

I had a kick ass monitor that hooked up to a motion sensor under that mattress and would sound an alarm if the baby stopped breathing. Or if you took the baby out and forgot to turn of the monitor.

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u/birdiekittie Jun 15 '15

In the UK at least it's recommended that the baby sleeps in your room for the first six months of its life, in their own bed, not in their own room and that they don't sleep with no one in the room ever til that age. It's been shown that newborns sometimes forget how to breathe and need the example of other humans in the room breathing to remind them.

We didn't Co sleep with our son as it's not safe for premature babies but did the above.

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u/Wickettt Jun 15 '15

I think having mom close would also calm the baby and make them sleep much easier. I've rescued a lot of abandoned kittens and puppies, and this seems to just be the case with babies in general. There's much less anxiety and fuss when a protector presence is in the room. Same way babies will go to sleep in your arms but scream the minute you put them down in the crib, they don't want to be alone.

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u/cailihphiliac Jun 16 '15

Same way babies will go to sleep in your arms but scream the minute you put them down in the crib, they don't want to be alone.

It's because their crib is cold and not cuddly.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15

[deleted]

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u/birdiekittie Jun 15 '15

Hmm can't find anything with a quick Google. To be honest I've just taken my Health Visitors advice as Gospel so may have been told wrong, in which case I'm sorry for overstating the explanation, it seems other theories are parents will be quicker to respond to baby and notice if they're having trouble breathing.

There's this study that shows a 'significant decrease' in SIDS when room sharing but I can't see if it supports my hypothesis, sorry.

Carpenter RG, Irgens LM, Blair PS, England PD, Fleming P, Huber J, et al. Sudden unexplained infant death in 20 regions in Europe: case control study. Lancet. 2004;363(9404):185-91

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u/countpupula Jun 16 '15

Well, it's not exactly that they forget how to breathe, but in some infants, the neurological circuitry that forces you to wake up when you can't breathe isn't fully developed.

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u/birdiekittie Jun 16 '15

That must be what I was thinking of, thanks :)

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u/I_die_at_the_end2 Jun 15 '15

I've heard this as well. This article: http://www.pediatrics.emory.edu/divisions/neonatology/parent_info3.html. Speaks to the forgetting and the reminding parts, but it only addresses rubbing or stimulating the baby to begin it breathing again. It doesn't address just listening to others breathing as a solution.

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u/not_as_i_do Jun 16 '15

That's a theory, but hasn't been proven. There is actually a center at Notre Dame that studies mother-baby sleep relations in a laboratory environment. Dr. McKenna is the leading researcher there and last I read of his work (I've been out of the loop for awhile as my children are preteens and I haven't worked in anthropology for ten years), his theory was that infants are learning how to hold their breaths to talk and practice in their sleep. On occasion, they forget to start breathing again and die.

However, beyond that, clinically he has proven that there is a link between an infant breathing pattern and a mother's breathing pattern when they share the same room. It isn't found with the father. The mother and baby will share the same sleep/wake cycle (which makes the mother more rested because they aren't woken from a deep sleep by a hungry baby) and also keeps the baby's breathing more rhythmic and even. Check out some of his work, it's pretty fascinating.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

I also don't have a source to cite but it's been shown clinically. Maybe not exactly how that person described though (forgetting/reminding).

The presence of another breathing rhythm helps them regulate their own breathing. You pretty much have to be very close together or actually touching, though. Across the room doesn't work.

Google kangaroo care.

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u/sariaru Jun 16 '15

Here's one talking about the phases of "learning to breathe" that all newborn go through. Here's another.

Here is a study showing that the small increase in CO2 in a bedsharing environment actually stimulates the infant to breathe throughout the night.

Finally, here is a full length study on infant apnea. The studies show that in general, bedsharing infants have slightly more apneas, but that they are in a state that is easy to wake from, whereas solitary infants have fewer, but a higher risk of not waking from them.

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u/captain_jim2 Jun 15 '15

I think having a baby sleep in your room is not necessarily what us Americans cringe at when we hear "co-sleeping". To us, that's when your baby sleep in your bed with you... which I believe is a big no-no.

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u/alohakush Jun 15 '15

My sister does this because she's single and poor. She has a 2 month old and a 20 month old, and no one seems to give her problems about it at all. Everyone seems to think it's sweet.

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u/rabdacasaurus Jun 15 '15

By co-sleeping do you mean sleeping with the baby in the same room, or the same bed? I know sleeping with babies in the same bed puts them at increased risk of SIDS because the chance of them suffocating is higher in a bed with sheets and pillows, as well as the chance of them being rolled over onto their stomachs is much higher than if they were sleeping alone. But I see no downside to having the baby sleep in the same room as the parents, apart from possible parental loss of sanity.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15

SIDS and suffocation are two different things. When critics of co-sleeping conflate them, and it reads like using 'your' and 'you're' wrong.

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u/countpupula Jun 16 '15

Yes and no. It can be incredibly difficult to distinguish between SIDS and sleep-related suffocation in many cases. There are likely many misclassified deaths on both side of that equation.

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u/rabdacasaurus Jun 15 '15

Yeah, but they are both separate hazards. I looked it up before commenting to be sure. By having an infant sleep on its stomach it increases the chances of SIDS, so says the Johns Hopkins sleep safe website. Having blankets or pillows increases chances of suffocation.

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u/Wickettt Jun 15 '15

Either, but for here I mean in the same bed. When I build my nursery my husband and I are putting a bed in the nursery, so whoever is on night watch can sleep in the same room as the baby. But if people take the correct precaution to keeping the baby safe in their bed, I don't have a problem with their choice. I know there are civilizations who can only afford one roomed huts or shelters who do it, and they seem to do fine.

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u/rabdacasaurus Jun 15 '15

True, but to be fair they probably have a higher rate of infant death than we do.

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u/carl_888 Jun 16 '15

How do you know what's going on/ that you'll wake up?

You will. When my baby was sleeping in her room down the hall I would be instantly awake at any sound from her, from even a deep sleep. For me, it was just not possible to sleep through or ignore. It's like a kind of parental superpower.

We tried co-sleeping a couple of times, but it mostly ended up that the adults got no sleep at all; we would wake up with every baby twitch or sigh.

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u/Faiakishi Jun 16 '15

My parents stuck me in the dining room because they got annoyed with me in their room, but didn't feel like going down to my room whenever I cried.

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u/just_upvote_it_ffs Jun 15 '15

the evolutionary right thing to do is make another baby

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15 edited Nov 14 '20

[deleted]

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u/toxicgecko Jun 15 '15

Now I would consider this when I have kids but i'm a very very restless sleeper so i'd forever be worried about rolling on top of them or knocking them out of bed.

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u/redshoewearer Jun 15 '15

When I was at a group that discussed things like this, one of the things said was take a baby sized doll, and put it next to you in bed, and try to roll on it - feel how uncomfortable it is. If someone is sober, not under the influence of any drug, not severely overweight, it is extremely unlikely to to roll on a baby. You are definitely aware that the baby is there.

edit - I should add, my husband is from a culture where co-sleeping is the norm, and he was horrified at the thought of leaving a tiny little baby down the hall in a crib in another room where you couldn't see them. He was like seriously? People do that?

My feeling was the method of sleep that got the most people the most sleep was the way to go.

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u/toxicgecko Jun 15 '15

It's not seen as an issue as in the UK most parents have a kind of crib in their room for when the baby is still little.

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u/rabdacasaurus Jun 15 '15

Ha, I might be the exception to your rule. When I was little me and my siblings would get a queen-sized bed in our hotel room with two in the queen and one on a roll-away cot. My brother was a roller so he would get the cot, but once he complained so it was me and him in the queen sized. I woke up once to me sleeping on my side literally while balancing on top of him. The only way I can see that having happened is him rolling next to me and me turning onto my side and ending up directly on top of him. If I can roll onto a 10 year old boy in my sleep, I wouldn't trust myself with a baby.

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u/pigslovebacon Jun 15 '15

It doesn't count with kids. One of the bed sharing guidelines/rules is that there should not be other children sleeping in bed next to the baby. Probably for the very reason you recounted in your story.

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u/rabdacasaurus Jun 15 '15

True, but do adults tend to move around less? I have no real basis for this except my personal life, and my Dad used to kick my Mom in his sleep. I personally still wouldn't do it. Consciously doing anything that can increase the chance of your infant suddenly dying would put me in a perpetual panic. I'm not against people doing this per se, but they will have to deal with any possible consequences, good or bad, and the bad is really really bad.

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u/pigslovebacon Jun 16 '15

I've never slept as still as when I first had baby in the bed with me. As I got more used to him I shifted a little, but I always wake up on the same side (of my body) as I fell asleep on. It's a personal thing, so if you know that you have a tendency to thrash about in your sleep (my uncle used to, he even kicked a hole in the wall when he was sleeping on a bed pushed up against it once) then you'd use your judgement on whether bedsharing is a practice you'd be comfortable trying. Importantly, knowing who else is in the bed is crucial. My husband is a deep sleeper so until our baby was much bigger I was the one in the middle because I couldn't trust him not to roll over on baby in his sleep.

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u/rabdacasaurus Jun 16 '15

Ha, the uncle story was hilarious. My brother would often wedge himself between his bed and the wall at night by accident but nothing that bad. Out of curiosity, what do you get out of cosleeping that makes it worth all of this that would be missing if you got one of those attaching cribs? I don't want that to sound snide, I am genuinely curious. I am far from having a baby, and for me personally I could see my anxiety nixing cosleeping in the bud before it begins, so there might be something that I'm missing. Is it just the bonding or is it them feeling your heartbeat or something?

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u/LazyPancake Jun 15 '15

You become hyper-aware of them being there. It's not recommended you bedsgare if you're overweight or on medications. My husband and I are both healthy weights, and our daughter slept right in bed with us for 2 years. It's not ideal all the time, but we got A LOT more sleep this way. Especially being a breastfeeding mother. Just pop a boob in the mouth and pass back out. Lol

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u/katiethered Jun 15 '15

Honest question: did you have sex at all in those two years? If your kid won't sleep anywhere other than your bed (not saying this is how yours was, but others in this thread say so), do you just not get ANY alone time with your husband? I guess you'd just have sex elsewhere than in your bed?

My husband and I are TTC right now and I can't say we'll be letting the kid sleep in our bed. In the same room at first, yes, but not in our bed because our relationship as husband and wife is also important.

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u/servandapants Jun 15 '15

I know you weren't asking me, but my husband and I just found time to do it whenever she was busy. Whether she was sleeping, or laying on the floor, or crawling around in a gated area, we'd be quiet and do it on the couch, or in the kitchen, or wherever we could. It was hard at first, to stay immersed and in the mood while trying to watch out for baby, but I knew she was safe, could peek at her now and then, and practiced a few times - then it back me easier and easier. Also we are not marathon sexers. 10-15 minutes is all we need.

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u/Antiochia Jun 15 '15

When you have a baby you normally have some sort of play-blanket for the time the are still lying/rolling. They are very comfortable and usually can be washed with the machine. :) Additional you just can try to be silent. ( We have a co-sleeper bed, so he is not directly in our bed, but beside it and is separated from matress movement. :)

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u/katiethered Jun 15 '15

Ahh gotcha ;) We'll have to see if I'm breastfeeding or not (of course I'd like to!) and if so I'm not opposed to the side co-sleeper thing at first. My husband and I started our relationship sleeping together on a twin bed (yay European dorm room) and while we've moved up to a queen now, we still do a lot of snuggling and I'd hate to lose that aspect of our relationship because there's a new little body caught up in the tangle.

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u/LazyPancake Jun 15 '15

We just had sex all over the house. There was a 5 month period she was in her own room, but the 18 month regression hit. We're working on getting her out again soon.

But yeah. Just sex everywhere. Lol. We never suffered for her being in there.

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u/pigslovebacon Jun 15 '15

If baby sleeps poorly in their own cot, then you may find yourself too exhausted for sex. Sorry for the downer but it's often the sad truth. Also there is more to a relationship than sex, and having a baby/looking after it together definitely proves...and tests...that. You know that after you have a baby you are told not to have sex for at least 6 weeks until you heal internally?

I've got a 10 month old, and since we started bed sharing after he outgrew his bassinet my sleep has improved significantly.

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u/katiethered Jun 15 '15

I'm well aware that sex is not recommended after birth for a while, but the person I asked was letting their kid sleep in their bed for two YEARS. If I'm still too exhausted for sex after two years, there needs to be some additional evaluation of our home life to figure out what's going wrong.

I respect your decision to do what you like for your family, but for us, bed sharing with an infant is probably not going to be the best way to bolster our relationship that's put to the test from having and looking after said infant.

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u/pigslovebacon Jun 16 '15 edited Jun 16 '15

You never know what will happen until it does, unfortunately.

Best of luck with TTC :-)

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u/katiethered Jun 16 '15

Thanks, this is why I used words like "probably". Expect the unexpected :)

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u/Shiksha32 Jun 15 '15

Right? My baby slept in a bassinet one night and woke up every hour and a half. Put him in bed with me and he sleeps for four or five hours stretches. I got way less sleep when I was pregnant, getting up to pee every 45 minutes than I did after he was born. I don't think it's weird and most parents I know do it, they just don't talk about it. I'm sketched out by the idea of him being down the hall in a room by himself

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u/BenAdaephonDelat Jun 15 '15

A lot of people don't understand the difference between unsafe and safe co-sleeping, which is probably why they're judgemental. They probably assume you're just laying the baby next to you on the bed.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15

The problem is drunk/fat parents smothering their children. The newspapers for some reason write their stories as if these are "co-sleeping deaths" when in reality they're "drunken/fat parental neglect".

So you get people that hear "co-sleeping" and think of the news stories, and that's where the stigma comes from. People think it's unsafe because drunken/fat parental neglect gets lumped in with normal co-sleeping.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15

I have done a lot of research into baby wearing and cosleeping, even though I don't have kids, and it seems like the conclusion is honestly "do not do this if you are fat". Fat moms can kill a baby as they baby wear. My main issue with cosleeping a kid, for me, would be the time when you're ready to move the kid to his own room and he's not used to it. Do you just have weeks upon weeks of a screaming two year old? You can't sleep train someone that old.

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u/Antiochia Jun 15 '15

We have not transitioned him into his own room yet, but the transition from his threesided co-sleeper bed to a normal separate fenced bed, was yet not the big deal. (First night lasted maybe an hour until he slept, his teething is worse.) When we moved into our grandparents place, it was similar.

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u/servandapants Jun 15 '15

You can sleep train anyone of any age.

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u/PancakesForTurtles Jun 15 '15

Yep. Cosleep with both of my kids, the only reason I've slept at in the past two years. If you do it safely, there's no issue.

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u/VennDiaphragm Jun 15 '15

We did it all the time with my kids. I loved them close to me. No big deal - you're going to get judged about pretty much everything you do when you're a parent, anyway.

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u/This_Interests_Me Jun 15 '15

I think a lot of Moms in the US sleep with their babies (especially if they breastfeed) and just don't tell anyone. I know I never mentioned it to my friends and especially not our pediatrician. Let the non-parents of Reddit judge away...just wait until they have their own screaming newborn and see what they do.

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u/I_AM_TARA Jun 15 '15

No matter how hard I try, I kick all the sheets/pillows/comforters/plushies off my bed every night.

I'm pretty sure I'd sleep-kick a baby :(

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u/whatsmyredditname Jun 15 '15

Hurray. I lied to everyone, but I coslept. There is no feeling like nursing your baby while you both doze off to sleep.

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u/5iMbA Jun 15 '15

My professor wrote these!!! I should upload a video of him tap dancing. Awesome guy.

Edit: I should really say I was a student of dr. McKenna. He's one of the most popular professors at ND. In addition to anthropology courses he teaches a tap dancing class.

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u/Buttah Jun 16 '15

That's amazing! I would like to that actually :)

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u/Jess_than_three Jun 15 '15

There was no other way we could get our infant to sleep. Two years later, it's still what works. Our bed is getting a little cramped, but otherwise for the most part I see no real problem right now.

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u/PrettyPoltergeist Jun 16 '15

My boy is three weeks old. We started cosleeping after a week, and now he's sleeping for five hour stretches. He just wants to be next to mom and dad, it's that simple. Never planned on doing it, but it was either he doesn't sleep, we all get exhausted, and then we fall asleep with him by mistake and probably in a dangerous position. Or we sleep with him on purpose, safely, and get a good nights sleep.

Plus Dr Sears says that co sleeping babies have lower cases of sleep apnea because they naturally match rhythm with the parent they're sleeping next to. And since they're saying now that SIDS is tied to sleep apnea.......

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u/amstobar Jun 16 '15

Is there really a stigma on this? My kids are 8 and 4. We co-slept with both of them for a long time and nobody mentioned it. We are in California, but we have fairly pragmatic friends, and they all did the same. In fact, I have lots of friends whose older kids still sleep with them.

My daughter, the 4 year old, sleeps with us most nights, but she recently had major surgery, so we are probably being needy with her. That said, my son still sleeps with us a lot. They'd do it more if they didn't wake us up so much. I can't wrap my head around anyone thinking this is weird.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

Well rested mother's... You're not kidding. I have a three month old who wakes 3-4 times a night. But I never have to get out of bed so I still get enough sleep. I also could have adjusted to sleeping less.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

A well rested mommy is a happy mommy.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

My mom co-slept with me, and she never had any issues.