Secrets of children's sleep

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Why is it so important to sing a lullaby to a child? What kind of monsters are hiding under the bed of a child who does not want to go to bed in his room? An adult rarely ponders over these seemingly simple questions.

The monsters under the bed are real

In our society, babies and young children are constantly protesting against going to sleep. They come up with different reasons. They say that they are not tired, although in fact, their fatigue is clearly visible. They say that they are hungry or thirsty, that they need to tell a fairy tale (and then another one) - whatever, just to play for time. They say that they are afraid of the dark and monsters under the bed or in the closet. Babies who don't speak, who can't yet describe their fears or try to negotiate, just cry.

Why are they protesting so much? Many years ago, renowned behavioral psychologist John Watson actually argued that this behavior is not normal, it arises from the fact that parents overly pamper their children. Echoes of this view can still be found in parenting books, which usually advise to remain firm and not give in to sleep. Experts say this is a battle of characters that you, as a parent, must win in order not to spoil your child.

But these expert interpretations are clearly missing something. Why do young children test their parents' willpower on this very issue? They don't protest toys, sunlight, or hugs (at least not usually). Why don't they want to go to sleep, because sleep is very useful for them and they need it?

The answer begins to emerge if we take our minds off the Western world and turn our attention to children in other regions. Bedtime scandals are unique to Western and related cultures. In other countries, small children sleep in the same room, and often in the same bed with one or more adults, so going to bed is not a source of protest.

Small children, apparently, are protesting not against falling asleep as such, but against being in bed alone, in the dark, under the cover of night.

People from other countries are shocked by the Western custom of putting their children to sleep in a separate room, often even without older siblings. Their reaction: “Poor kids! Why are their parents so cruel? The hunter-gatherer cultures are most shocked because they know all too well why young children don't want to be left alone in the dark.

Peter Gray, a professor of psychology at Boston College, explains the fear of falling asleep in this way.

Just 10,000 years ago, we were all hunter-gatherers. We all lived in a world where any baby left alone at night became a tasty bait for nocturnal predators. The monsters under the bed or in the closet were real, scouring the jungle and savannah, sniffing out prey near human settlements. The grass hut did not serve as protection, it was closeness to an adult, and preferably to several at once. In the history of our species, children who were scared and screaming to attract the attention of adults, being left alone at night, were more likely to survive and pass on their genes to future generations than those who calmly resigned themselves to their fate. In a hunter-gatherer society, only a crazy or completely careless person would leave a small child alone at night, and another adult would certainly come to his aid when he heard the slightest cry.

When your child cries alone at night in his crib, he does not test your will for strength! He literally screams to survive. Your baby is crying because genetically we are all hunter-gatherers, and your baby's genes contain information that being alone in the dark is suicide.

These days, when there is no real danger, children's fears seem irrational, so parents often feel that they are contrary to common sense and children should simply learn to overcome them.

Or they read from the "experts" that the child is simply testing their willpower and acting spoiled. Thus, parents are fighting with their child instead of listening to him and to their own instincts, which urge to pick up any crying baby, keep him nearby, offer him their care, and not leave him alone to “overcome” …

The second aspect is entities that adults do not see, but children see

However, Peter Gray's opinion does not reflect the entirety of the picture. After all, children very often can see what adults do not see. This is due to the fact that their brains are not yet blinkered, and the entity's abilities have not yet closed. And the point here is not in the mental deviations of children, but in the mental disability of psychiatrists … This video can be cited as an illustration: "Children and Astral Parasites"

Third Aspect - Past Life Nightmares

Another factor that can affect a child's restless sleep is nightmares triggered by memories of previous incarnations.

For some, this concept seems nonsense, but it is worth noting that it was on the example of children who remember past lives that reincarnation, or the reincarnation of an entity into different bodies over time, was absolutely scientifically proven.

See video Scientists have proven the existence of reincarnation

For 40 years, Canadian-American biochemist and psychiatrist Ian Stevenson and researched evidence of reincarnation in children. He and his colleagues have collected over 3,000 cases from various cultural and religious backgrounds around the world. Most cases have occurred in Southeast Asia, but there are cases reported in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the United States.

His research was conducted with exceptional scientific rigor, meticulous collection of "evidence", cross-polls, postmortem autopsies, and the evidence base and credibility of his findings can easily be compared to criminal investigations.

Due to the impossibility of refutation, these studies are in fact recognized by the scientific community, but because of their "inconvenience" they are simply hushed up.

Dr. Stevenson's most brilliant innovation is perhaps that he turned to young children for evidence of reincarnation. When the memories of past lives are born in adults, it is almost impossible to prove their authenticity, since they could glean all these facts from books, television and other media. The child's memory is quite pure, untouched by worldly experience. Therefore, isolated memories that can only be attributed to a past life are much easier to identify in young children.

Dr. Stevenson limited the field of his research to spontaneous memories only, when children began to talk about past lives only of their own free will, without being provoked by any comments. This excluded the possibility of using hypnosis and other techniques of hunting for memories, for which the skeptics criticize researchers, arguing that during hypnosis it is possible to suggest certain ideas.

Read also the book: Carol Bowman's "Past Lives of Children"

Dreams about past lives are a special case of the phenomenon of childhood memories of previous incarnations.

Why do we hear about nightmares most often? Children have vivid dreams about a pleasant and calm past life, but they rarely share them with us. The dream of a dramatic death or trauma from a past life excites the child and attracts his attention. It makes your child wake up at night and rush into your room, cry and seek your protection. With repeated nightmares, these scenes can occur almost every night, destroying the peace of the entire family.

Parents should stop reacting to nightmares the old fashioned way - brush them aside as fantasies (meaning that they are meaningless) or condescendingly try to prove to the baby that no monsters and babai are hiding under the bed or in closets. Never make a joke of your child's nightmare! On the contrary, try to penetrate into the meaning of the dream and try to find signs of memories of past lives in it. Treat fear not as a problem, but as a symptom that indicates that past life memories need to be understood and healed.

Unlike the memories of past lives that come during wakefulness, dreams are not conscious until the child tells about them in detail after waking up.

Eight-year-old Keith was brought by his father to Dr. De Vasto in the hope of finding a cure for bruxism - forced teeth grinding. He had previously taken his son to several dentists, but they could not find any pathology on the part of the jaws that could explain this condition. Finally, the last of the dentists suggested that hypnosis could help in this case, and recommended Dr. De Vasto. Here's what happened during the session, according to the therapist:

My father told me that Keith's problems began quite suddenly six months ago, and since then his condition has deteriorated all the time. During the first conversation, he said, in general in passing, that Keith had a nightmare around the same time that teeth grinding began. During the nightmare, he was suffocated. He did not know why the choking was occurring, but there was a feeling as if something was crushing him. After each of these nightmares, Keith woke up very tense and felt a sense of deep fear.

Keith gave the impression of a very pleasant, intelligent and calm boy. We immediately established good contact with him. I knew from experience that it would be easy for me to work with him. I applied age regression to send it back to the first nightmare. He regressed easily, but resisted my attempts to force him to look at the situation. But the gentle persuasion did its job - the story began to unfold, and within a minute I was literally jumping up and down in my chair with excitement, and Keith's father seemed completely stunned.

Keith began to tell us about a fifteen-year-old Frenchman undergoing Nazi occupation. He spoke from the perspective of this French boy, Rene. Keith sat with his eyes closed and from time to time began to tremble all over, describing the events taking place in front of his inner gaze. His fellow villagers, lined up in a long line, strode towards his farm under the supervision of German soldiers. The soldiers broke into the farm, grabbed Rene and all his family members and forced them to join the line. Keith was in a trance and with closed eyes repeated plaintively: “Tell them, I am not a Jew. Tell me I'm not a Jew!"

But no one heeded these calls. A few days after a long walk and a railroad crossing, Rene, along with the others, was led through a complex structure of barbed wire and barriers. He was sick of the smell of death coming from all directions. Then they were lined up in one line in front of the moat. People dressed in military uniforms began to shoot at them with machine guns. The bullet hit Rene's temple and he fell into the moat. He felt the weight of bodies falling on top of him. He wanted to breathe in and scream, but was unable to do so because of the mass of bodies piled on him. His screams remained silent - internal. He was dying slowly, filled with fear and pain.

The entire session lasted for about three hours. When it came to an end, Keith sighed with immense relief. The only thing that his father could squeeze out of himself: "I can't believe it!" After working through the memories and explaining everything that happened during the session, the father and son went home. Keith never had nightmares again, and he stopped grinding his teeth at night.

Case from the book Carol Bowman's "Past Lives of Children"

Finally, about why it is important to prepare for children's sleep:

Why do moms sing lullabies?

Psychologists conducted a study in which they observed two groups of children. The mothers sang lullabies to the kids from the first group, the kids from the second, instead of lullabies, they simply turned on calm music. The results were surprising and impressive. Children from the first group were calmer, obedient, intellectually developed. Psychologists explain these results for several reasons. One of the most important is the establishment of a special emotional relationship between mom and baby. After all, a mother, lulling a child, leaves far from his cradle all the anxiety and excitement accumulated during the day, fully turns to him, transfers her warmth and tenderness to him, gently strokes the baby. The kid perceives her intonations, the timbre of her voice, so dear and beloved, which gives him a feeling of warmth and security, which are very important for ending the day and restful sleep.

Lullabies are very important in the process of mastering speech by a child, therefore, in the development of thinking. The character of the little person, his physical health, the degree of his psychological stability depend on what songs the mother sang to the child, and whether she sang them at all. In addition, knowledge about the world is encrypted in the lullaby, which is awakened in the genetic memory. Children whose genetic memory is not "awakened" find it much more difficult to adapt in life and in society. They develop more slowly.

The authorship of this discovery belongs to Irina Karabulatova, Doctor of Philology from Tyumen, who has studied lullabies of the peoples of Siberia for a long time. German doctors, who studied lullabies from their positions, assert: if the patient is given a lullaby to listen to before the operation, the required dose of anesthesia is halved. Experts from the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences have found that mothers who sing lullabies to their children improve lactation, and in the future, closer relationships with children are established. If a mother regularly hums to a premature baby, he will gain strength much faster. Mothers who began to sing lullabies to their children even before their birth were relieved of the manifestations of toxicosis, and the course of pregnancy was facilitated.

Among the Siberian peoples, according to the observations of Irina Karabulatova, it is through lullabies that moral ideals are transmitted from one generation to another. It used to be believed that infancy is the most suitable age for laying moral foundations in a little person. When performing a lullaby, a mother encodes her son or daughter for a certain behavioral stereotype adopted in society. This determines the socially acceptable behavior of a person in the future.

It is interesting that lullabies of all peoples of the world have similar features: high timbre, slow tempo and characteristic intonations. But in the song of each nation there are many “secrets”: they contain their own philosophy and their outlook on life, stress in words obey their rhythmic pattern, they reflect a generalized model of the universe of their people, according to which a child gets to know the world for the first time.

Moreover, by singing a lullaby, the mother transfers the most important language skills to the child. While rocking or amusing him, the mother stretches and emphasizes the vowels. This allows children to better assimilate the phonetic structure of their native speech and develop language skills faster. The melodious "children's language", which adults, especially mothers, use to communicate with babies, performs the most important developmental functions.