What Would Cave Baby Think?

If you’ve read my post What Would Cave Baby Do? you’ll know that I reconciled myself to Baby B’s sometimes draining behaviour by thinking about the evolutionary drive behind it. I realised my little survivor just needed to be close to feel safe and a happy time of babywearing and co-sleeping followed.

But he’s nearly 15 months old now. Rather than keeping him safe at night I feel like he’s become the sabre tooth tiger. His pinching, scratching, clobbering, climbing antics were leaving me seriously sleep-deprived and the all night feeding was making me literally lose my mind.

Initially it felt like an admission of defeat but, when the sleep consultant we enlisted to help us arrived and started talking about B in terms of his cave baby instincts, I knew we were going to be ok. And she opened my eyes to so much.

For example, when he cries after spending the first few hours of the night in his cot, and I go in and pick him up, his cave baby limbic system screams WARNING! Mummy thinks there is a danger here so she’s picked you up. And when daddy walks him around to calm him down he’s thinking WARNING! Daddy is moving us away from the danger. No wonder he doesn't want to go back in!

Sleep deprivation is exhausting and night wakings are infuriating. It all causes us to feel stressed and anxious; stress and anxiety cause us to become tense, impatient and our hearts to beat faster. Our clever little cave babies can sense this. They don't realise they are the cause, they think there must be a real danger out there causing mummy and daddy to panic, which makes them panic. Taking deep breaths and staying as calm and relaxed as possible sends the crucial message to cave baby - you are safe, you can sleep.

It seems kind of obvious now and I feel kind of sad that our efforts to offer comfort were often giving an entirely different message, but hey, we live and learn. And babies learn at a remarkable rate. Although B has spent 15 months ‘refusing’ to stay in his cot or sleep alone, after 2 nights of me keeping him in the cot and staying with him for reassurance he is now totally cool with it. He knows we’re close, he knows there is no danger, he knows he can relax and get on with sleeping. He’s yet to make it through the night but we’ve come a million miles already. And this cave family are all feeling a hell of a lot better for it.