Colleague Xinxin's second eldest, since birth, he has slept with his grandmother for 2 years, and the eldest has been sleeping with himself. She clearly felt that the two children had different feelings for her.
Every day at work, the boss will run over to ask for a hug, and will pull his mother to say a bunch of intimate words such as", "Mom, I will miss you", "Mommy work hard" and so on. The second brother watched coldly, occasionally saying "goodbye" when he was in a good mood.
Xinxin said that now she regrets not letting the second brother sleep with him, and feels that now how to make up for the second brother has always had a ditch with himself, some weakness.
The second child is released, and the situation of Xinxin is not a minority. Most full-time mothers, caught between work and life, work hard during the day to cope with work, after work and children, at night they are eager to lie in bed and sleep to death. To take 2 children to sleep is really more than enough and insufficient, so most of the workplace mothers will let children sleep with the elderly.
According to my observation, nearly half of the families with second children around them sleep with the second and elderly people. Over time, children are also accustomed to the company of the elderly, but they will be a little unaccustomed to being with their parents.
But you know what? This situation is a great obstacle to the establishment of a "secure attachment relationship" in the child.
It is recommended that the mother should take the baby to sleep no matter how difficult it is
Instead of provoking the relationship between the grandmother and the child, psychologists have found that the mother is the best source of the child's sense of security and the first person to help the child establish an "attachment" relationship.
Attachment relationships will directly affect the child's future intimate relationship and interpersonal skills, and determine the child's sociality. That is to say, even though grandma's love is very important, no one can replace her mother's love and companionship.
Especially for children under 1 year old, their demand for sleep is very high:
In general, babies under 3 months of age should sleep enough for 13 to 18 hours a day;
Babies under 4 to 11 months of age need to sleep 12 to 16 hours a day;
For children around the age of 1, although the sleep duration will be shortened, it will also take about 11 hours.
At this stage, children have limited self-care ability, and the people lying around them will be the main source of their sense of security, and the longer the mother spends with them at this time, the more likely the child is to establish a "safe" attachment.
Of course, it is not that grandma's company cannot establish a "safe" attachment, but it is easier for children to draw strength from their mother's company, which is nature. Relatively speaking, it is easier for moms to build secure attachments.
In the 19th century, the famous psychoanalyst René Spietz conducted a tracking experiment. He followed the babies in the nursery, and although they were cared for by professionals every day, the babies who left their mothers slowly felt anxious, frightened, and unresponsive.
This is why many children under the age of 1 are accustomed to relying on the arms of their mothers when they sleep, and sometimes when their mothers go out, they also have to hold their mother's clothes to fall asleep. In the end, the reason is simply that the mother is not there, and the child is insecure.
Intimate mother-child relationships directly affect the child's attachment relationship
Psychologist Irons Wirth did an experiment on the "strange situation method". He first puts the child and the mother in a strange room, then asks a stranger to communicate with the mother, and then asks the mother to leave the room to observe the child's reaction. Then he asked the mother to return to the room and observe the child's reaction again. He came up with 3 types of mother-child attachment relationships:
Safe: About 70% of children are of this type, this type of child is very safe, able to quickly adapt to the surrounding environment, and the mother will try to explore the surrounding environment in the absence of the mother.
Anxiety-ambivalence: These children are conflicted, they worry that their mother is not there, and they will pretend not to see it when they return. Their mood swings are strong and at the same time aggressive.
Avoidant: These children behave coldly. Whether or not the mom walks away has little effect on them and often isolates themselves from emotional experiences.
Irons Wirth found that children who were close to their mothers were more likely to develop secure attachments. Children who isolate themselves from their mothers are more likely to develop conflicting or avoidant attachments. When these children grow up, they either isolate themselves from the crowd or force themselves to integrate into the group but are actually very distant. When dealing with intimate relationships, it will also take an avoidant and contradictory approach.
Psychologists have also found that sleeping with parents is an easy way to pull into parent-child relationships. Young parents will usually help their children read some books of interest before they go to bed, accompany their children to do games or have some brief chats with their children. A simple bedtime story, a simple dialogue, and a lullaby hummed by the mother will be transformed into a bond that maintains the parent-child relationship, so that the child can feel the selfless "love" of the parents.
Children who sleep with the elderly rarely have this experience. Most of the elderly will not cultivate bedtime rituals for children, and there is no rich bedtime activity, and the monotonous bedtime steps are actually depriving children of the opportunity to cultivate intimate relationships.
Therefore, if there is a condition or it is recommended that the mother should take the child to sleep by herself, the conditions are not allowed, then try to sleep with her before the age of 2.
It is recommended that the mother sleep with other reasons
Reason one: the elderly can not rest, sleep quality can not be guaranteed
Parents who are parents know that coaxing children to sleep is a very energy-consuming project, and some bear babies have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet after sleeping. Smaller babies, 3 hours to drink a milk, coupled with children's headaches, colds can not be avoided, adults want to sleep a peaceful sleep is really difficult.
The old man took a child for a day during the day, and the sleep at night was not guaranteed, plus the age was too old to be able to bear the body. The sleep quality of most of the elderly is not very good, coupled with the noise of bear children, it is really difficult for the elderly to sleep with some strong people.
Reason two: the elderly are more doting on children, which is not conducive to children developing good sleep habits
Xinxin said that the second brother slept with his grandmother and ate a cheese stick every night before going to bed. Because there is no less argument between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law, the mother-in-law thinks that the child eats a cheese stick and falls asleep faster, why not eat it? Xinxin felt that he had brushed his teeth, what else to eat?
I have to say that there is indeed a generation gap in the parenting concept of the elderly and young people, and the elderly are relatively more doting. Children also grasp this point, will put forward some unreasonable requirements, and over time they will slowly develop unhealthy sleep habits.
Finally, I would like to say that before the child goes to bed, sleeping is the longest time we can accompany him. Each other's breathing and temperature will make children feel the happiness of their parents' company. Of course, the bedtime habits we help our children develop will also become a part of them, subtly affecting his personality development.
Although it takes energy to coax asleep, every effort of parents will become a boost to help their children, and it will also become a gold coin in the parent-child bank, prompting the parent-child relationship to become more harmonious.
Finally, it is also necessary to remind that if the mother is unwell, it is not appropriate to forcibly leave the child around.