One of the questions we've been asked many times during the first two weeks after Cara's birth is how we're sleeping. We are all sleeping well; Missy better than she had in months. Late in pregnancy it's difficult to find comfortable sleeping positions. Since Cara's been born, she and Missy sleep side-by-side (we do "family bed" a.k.a. shared sleep). When Cara gets hungry during the night, she makes little sucking noises which stirs Missy to raise a pajama top and nurse her. Generally nobody fully awakens so sleep is rather undisturbed.

This sleeping pattern is one for which mammals are wired. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes little sense to place a newborn some distant from their parental protectors then to require newborn cries to summon a parent and hopefully not a predator. Tired parents also make less effective providers, a trait that runs counter to evolutionary pressures. Along these lines, a newborn gives us an opportunity to more fully embrace our animal natures. Birthing can be a very primal, animal act or we can try to distance ourselves from it, and make it less healthy, through heavy interventions and a medical birthing.

A newborn is an uncultured animal. They suckle, sleep, defecate, urinate, expel gas, and learn. Parents of newborns can interact with them on this core level and follow their baby's lead as they learn about their world, or try to direct them with schedules for sleeping and eating, potty training, unnatural formula bottle feeding, early introduction of solid foods, and extended "out-of-arms" experiences.

We are all, at our cores, animals. Members of the same species. Of that we have no choice. We can change our language, our religion, where we live, who we call friends, our dietary habits, our hobbies, all aspects of what we call culture and our health may not worsen and indeed may improve. If we don't meet our animal needs, we become unhealthy and die. It is the basis on which everything else we are depends.

The culture we present to newborns--the one they learn--we can choose but they cannot. The choices we make are often unconscious; our language and lifestyle habits are so ingrained it is difficult to see them as habits and as choices. A parent of a newborn is brought back to their animal roots. There is a parenting choice they can make: they can honor and respect the newborn's, and their own, fundamental animal nature--the nature on which all else that person can become depends--or, they can attempt to rush the baby into their own culture. A culture the baby does not need (while a culture is a requirement, any particular culture is not). There is wisdom about human nature in a newborn. Learning from that innate wisdom would benefit their parents as human animals and as parents.

© 2003 frantzml@juno.com