A new survey is showing that the majority of new parents believe old wives' tales when it comes to their new baby’s sleep patterns and behavior. When someone begins their journey into parenthood, they learn very quickly that sleep is hard to come by. Throughout a woman’s pregnancy, she is told things like ‘enjoy sleeping while you can,’ and that is because newborns require round-the-clock feeding and care, which means there is not much sleep to be had in the beginning. It is a battle that a lot of moms have had to have, and it can become detective work to try and figure out a way to get your child to sleep longer.
According to Study Finds, the majority of new parents may be relying on old wives' tales when it comes to infant sleep. Old wives' tales can be fun and useful at times, but they are not always that accurate and are not often based on evidence-based research and studies, so how much faith should we place in them for solving our infant’s sleep problems?
A survey was conducted by OnePoll, on behalf of Naturepedic, and it looked at 2,000 US parents of children under the age of 5. It found that two-thirds of them believe old wives' tales, like keeping your baby awake all day to help them sleep at night when it comes to their infant’s sleep.
- More than half (59%) stated that they heard these tales from their own mothers
- 49% said that they read it online
While there is enough information out there that goes against these old wives' tales, most parents are still willing to give them a try. This could be due to their desperation to get some sleep at night.
- It also found that 7 in 10 parents think that if they keep their baby up later at night, they will sleep in during the morning hours.
The survey also found that parents are willing to try out some of these methods for 5 months before deciding if they work for them or not. The survey also looked at some sleep concerns that parents have with their babies, and most of the parents agreed that they worry the most about their babies when they are sleeping due to SIDS. This could be due to not enough education on the topic, as 1 in 10 parents did not know what SIDS was before they had a baby, and 11% of those asked did not know what the ‘ABC’s’ of sleeping were.
Sources: Study Finds, OnePoll, Naturepedic