Counterintuitiveness – Babies Resisting Sleep

Counterintuitive Series: Babies resisting sleep

Counterintuitiveness makes life more interesting. It also briefly reveals gaps or lags in our understanding or mindsets.

This particular one is a hypothesis and not an example (yet at least), but let me have your views or experiences on it.

Pic: source

A lot of parents of young kids nowadays, both friends and family, grumble about the time it takes to put their kid to sleep at a reasonable hour. And this seems to be a common occurrence across the world. One could perhaps attribute it to two factors. First, for many of us, our lifestyle and work-life balance has us sleeping much later than our parents’ generation did. And secondly, each new generation seems smarter and generally more curious than the previous. And the average kid nowadays has so much more information around to soak up.

However, it did get me wondering about the practice of putting kids to sleep. Nowadays, parents are often very gentle when patting the backs or bottoms of their kids to sleep. And kids really fight sleep. Leading to a tug-of-war between the two, often leaving both a bit grumpy.

Back in the day, parents or grandparents seemed to pat kids slightly less gently, something I thought was odd at the time. You’d wonder if they were trying to put the kid to sleep, or wake it up.

But it now makes me wonder if the overly gentle pat causes kids to resist sleep even more.
Stay with me on this thought for a moment.

Kids naturally tend to be a little rebellious when something is in conflict with their natural interest.
The gentle pat comes across as a request to sleep, something they don’t want to do, even if tired. So they resist, sometimes taking a really long time to fall asleep, to the displeasure of the parent.

Pic: source

The older generation’s firmer pats seemed counterintuitive. While intending to put the kid to sleep, they almost partially woke the drowsy kid. And therefore, seemed to conflict less with, or almost align with, the kid’s intention to stay awake.
Would this let the kid not resist sleep as much, and sleep faster?
Could it be that in our natural tendency to be gentler, we have added to the problem?
I don’t know. But hey, food for thought.

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