The Discontented Little Baby Book

Segmented sleep appeared to remain quite common even until the late 1800s,

Daylight, however, is not the only environmental cue that helps to set the baby’s circadian clock to align with day and night. Babies also need the activities of daily living to help calibrate their circadian clocks: conversation, footsteps, siblings’ noisy play, clanging of cooking utensils, taps running, toilets flushing, cupboard doors banging,

For all of us, physical discomfort is less noticeable when the body is drenched in pleasurable sensation – a warm bath, for example, or a massage.

are in, near to you, surrounded by daylight and the healthy sounds of family life.

From this time until today, well-intentioned experts advocate breastfeeding, but accidentally set it up to fail.

Normal healthy babies vomit frequently, with varying force, including some projectile vomits. In fact, research shows that two-thirds of babies vomit regularly, and that the vomiting peaks at 4 months of age.

opportunity to unplug, to ground yourself in sensation, to remember a corporeal intelligence, to return to the landscape of the body

just over a third of babies at 3 months of age, sleep from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. without disturbing their parents most (though not all) nights in the week.

I can imagine it. Two very old women walk with death perched on their shoulders like a wise old bird – death their friend, death their companion – and they know with stunning clarity the miracle of new life, the baby. They know how the new mother needs to be seen.